Tag: schuylkill center
MLK Day of Service — Projects from Home
January 12, 2021
Martin Luther King, Jr. dedicated his life to the nonviolent struggle for racial equality. In his honor, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service is observed on the third Monday in January. On what is termed “a day on, not off,” we are encouraged to engage in volunteer service to our community. While we can’t meet in person this year, we know that you don’t have to go far to make a difference. You're invited to join us at 10 am on Monday, January 18 over Zoom to connect with community and honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.…
Finch conjunctivitis requires isolation, too
April 8, 2020[caption id="attachment_271348" align="alignnone" width="576"] A recent patient, an American Goldfinch, with conjunctivitis.[/caption]
Wildlife rehabilitators are well aware of the potential for disease transmission between humans and wildlife as well as between individual animals- it is a calculated risk we take in the course of our daily work.
For example, we routinely practice isolation and quarantine in the wildlife clinic when we admit an animal with a contagious disease such as finch conjunctivitis, as was the case with this female American goldfinch. She arrived in early March with both her eyes so swollen and crusted she could hardly see. She needed…
Cooper’s Hawk Rehabilitation
April 1, 2020
This beautiful juvenile Cooper’s hawk was brought to the Wildlife Clinic in late February after being found on the side of a busy highway. Thanks to the quick actions of a kind rescuer, he was able to receive prompt attention, including treatment for head trauma and surgery to repair a wound on his chest. When he arrived, he was not even able to stand, as shown in the first picture. But after nearly 4 weeks of healing, and some recovery time in our flight cage, he was successfully released on March 17th.
It is because of the quick thinking and…
Trick-or-Treating Through the Years
October 9, 2014By Ezra Tischler, Arts and PR Intern
[caption id="attachment_123980" align="alignleft" width="150"] Halloween hikers gather before heading out on a night walk (1977).[/caption]
The forest can be a scary place at night. Its unfamiliar sounds reach out from the darkness, telling a nocturnal tale we humans seldom hear. However, the nighttime forest is full of much more than fright. By the light of moon, the forest comes alive. Owls screech and hoot; frogs croak; skunks, raccoons, and opossums forage through the forest floor; bats flap about in search of something to eat. A wondrously active forest is born each night.
At the…
Beyond the Surface
August 13, 2013On May 31, 2013 The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education presented Beyond the Surface: Environmental Art in Action - A conference of ideas and innovative thinking about the relationships between art and nature.
This unique, first time conference brought over 100 professionals from the region and beyond (as far as Maine and North Carolina) to hear from the Advisory Team about their own individual practices, and then to join them in conversations. Below are each team members’ presentations, for those of you who wish to hear from them directly.
The afternoon sessions were titled “Activate,” Integrate” and “Engage.” Undoubtedly, this one-day conference has…
Collaboration As a Means, Not an End
June 13, 2013By Amy Lipton, Curator and SCEE advisory panel member, 2012-2013
In my work with ecoartspace over the past 12 years focusing on ecological artists and their projects, the term collaboration has been frequently evoked. The intention behind much of this work is to restore, remediate or transform damaged landscapes and also to educate the public about specific environmental problems or challenges. Artists taking on this imperative seek to inspire modification of human behaviors that have negatively impacted the earth’s ecological systems. Their work embodies what German artist Joseph Beuys coined as “social sculpture” over 50 years ago to illustrate art's potential…
Time Frames
February 11, 2013by Sam Bower 2013
Standing in the woods near the pond at the Schuylkill Center, we can look out and see a range of time scales. The brown and golden leaves under our feet from the Fall- the leftovers of a year's work by the trees above us. Perhaps there's snow still on the ground from a recent storm, itself the result of the vast cycles of evaporation off the ground and from lakes and oceans into the atmosphere and clouds and back down again. Some of the trees around us are decades, maybe hundreds of years old. Frogs and…
Ecological Design Thinking
January 25, 2013by Jenny Sabin
Figure 1 - Sabin's myThread Pavilion for NYC Nike FlyKnit Collective; featuring a responsive Whole Garment knitted structure; image courtesy of Nike Inc.
Sustainable building practices should not simply be technical endeavors. They should include the transformation of existing built fabric into sustainable models that inspire both positive socio-cultural change and innovation in design, science, art and technology. Professor and architect, Michael Hensel at a recent symposium hosted by the Department of Architecture at Cornell University titled Sustaining Sustainability, underscored this notion (see full review by Sabin in The Architectural Review Issue #1381, March 2012). The symposium…
Art/ist Roles
December 3, 2012By Eve Mosher
October 29th, Hurricane Sandy made landfall. The eye of the storm passed over New Jersey but the hurricane winds, and worse, a massive storm surge hit New York City. The storm surge, combined with high tides and sea level rise created a superstorm that sent waters rushing into the coastal areas of New York.
As images of the floods began to circulate, I got a sense of eerie familiarity. The debris line near the 14th street power station (where an explosion knocked out power for lower Manhattan for almost a week), the flooded Battery Tunnel entrance in…
Effective Art
November 14, 2012By Lillian Ball
There is an innovative category of artist that confirms the many ways art can do more than mirror the state of our culture, or current events. These artists are committed to working in ways that actually change how the world works in addition to the ways we might perceive the world.
The diverse art projects I am fascinated with cover a wide range of disciplines. Social practice or public interaction is often a vital component. These international artists are doing more than merely talking about "relational aesthetics". Ecological systems are inherently relational with great potential for embedded aesthetics.…
