Tag: news-import
Kindness Week at Nature Preschool
May 27, 2014By Shannon Dryden, Preschool Manager and Lead Teacher
When people think of school and what children learn, it’s important to remember it’s not just reading, writing and arithmetic. Particularly in preschool, building social skills is key. At the Schuylkill Center Nature Preschool, the children have demonstrated how much they have learned about kindness, cooperation, relationships, and compassion. Throughout the year, we have built a community of trust and love between children, adults, and nature. This week, we celebrated all the kind acts of our children with a kindness week. (more…)
Nature Preschool goes camping
May 22, 2014By Rebecca Dhondt, Preschool Teacher
Last week Nature Preschool went camping right in our Tall Trees Playscape. We talked about camping, read about camping, sang about camping and probably dreamed about camping on our rest mats. Activities included playing in tents, snuggling in sleeping bags, hiking, using mess kits, learning about building fires and ‘roasting’ marshmallows.
After reading a camping story, the Nature Preschoolers were excited about creating their own camping story. We took the opportunity to teach about the parts of a story: beginning, middle and end; problem and solution; and characters and setting. After brainstorming we created this…
First Day as a LandLab Resident
May 14, 2014By LandLab Resident Artist Leslie Birch
I’m Leslie Birch, and I’m very curious about Philadelphia’s water. Last Thursday, I felt a bit nervous as I headed my car down the long driveway towards the Schuylkill Center. Having looked at records online for water quality in this watershed, I’ve seen mixed reports. We are located downstream from some heavy-duty coal and energy industries and also share our waters with many manufacturing industries. What hope can there be? Well, after meeting Sean Duffy, Director of Land and Facilities, I was assured there actually is a shining star – apparently the Center has…
Four sounds from early May
May 8, 2014By Anna Lehr Mueser, Public Relations Manager
This week the forests and fields are alive with sounds, all manner of animals calling out and leafy trees rustling in the breeze. This is also the time of year when our Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic is brimming with baby animals of all sorts. So, here are four samples of what May sounds like at the Schuylkill Center.
Toads, singing in afternoon sunlight. A basin in this field fills with water most of the year, creating a nice habitat for toads and other amphibians. Around the field and basin are vines, grasses, and flowering trees.
[audio m4a="http://www.schuylkillcenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Toads-and-birds-singing-May-1.m4a" preload="auto"][/audio]
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Local Food Culture in Philadelphia: A look at a growing movement
April 30, 2014By Daphne Churchill, Intern and Educator
A bright sunny Saturday draws you out for a morning walk. You look up the street and see the white tents with tables of fresh products: red radishes, leafy green lettuce, freshly cut flower bouquets, free-range eggs, fresh goat cheeses, liquid amber honeys. The tables are bountiful and the tents abundant. Neighbors chat with one another as they nibble free samples and discuss their purchases. You overhear growers converse about sustainable practices and their business with the consumers as they debate and make their purchases. This typical scene of a farmer’s market has become…
Meet the LandLab Resident Artists
April 21, 2014By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
We are thrilled to announce the four resident artist projects for our new LandLab residency program. Launching this spring, LandLab projects will create innovative, art-based installations that prevent or remediate environmental damage while raising public awareness about our local ecology.
LandLab is a unique artist residency program that operates on multiple platforms: artistic creation, ecological restoration, and education. Our residency offers resources and space on the Schuylkill Center’s property for visual artists to engage audiences in the processes of ecological stewardship through scientific investigation and artistic creation. We’re excited at SCEE to offer…
Learning and Growing with Nature Preschool
April 18, 2014By Shannon Dryden, Nature Preschool Manager & Lead Teacher
As the preschool manager and teacher at the Schuylkill Center Nature Preschool, it is so exciting to see the benefits of children spending time outdoors unfolding right before my eyes. The children have gained endurance and stamina since the beginning of the year. We now venture to ponds and places that are farther away on our trails and the children enjoy these excursions. For example after describing Wind Dance Pond, the children immediately began asking “Can we go there?” Nature Preschool took on the challenge and showed a tremendous amount of…
First blooming
April 9, 2014By Anna Lehr Mueser
I walk through the forest in the afternoon, listening to the rustle of a light breeze in the treetops and the distant hum of the city, reminding me that I am both immersed in the forest, and still in the city of Philadelphia. At this time of year, I love to watch the woods transform from their winter quiet to the stampede of color and growth that is springtime. This time last year, it seemed everything was blooming, but today, just the first green things, the first buds, the first butterflies, appear. The long winter has…
The Sixth Extinction, Book Review
April 3, 2014By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
Book review for the Philadelphia Inquirer, a print version of this review appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday, March 30, 2014.
We inhabit an extraordinary planet overflowing with an abundance of life: massive coral reefs built by billions of tiny invertebrates, rain forests teeming with uncountable plants and animals, frogs and toads singing in vernal ponds, bats flitting over summer meadows.
But we also live at an extraordinary moment when all of the creatures named above, and millions more, might disappear in our lifetime. And while climate change gets all the attention as an environmental…
Meandering with Stacy Levy at Swarthmore
March 31, 2014By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
I recently got to attend a lecture at Swarthmore College's List Gallery given by Stacy Levy, one of the most exciting environmental artists working today. Titled “Constructing Nature: What Art Reveals,” Levy’s talk (video here) touched on her approach to environmental art, some of her past pieces (including one we’re lucky to have onsite here at the Schuylkill Center), and two new pieces that were unveiled that night at Swarthmore. (more…)
