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Claudia Bonn is Wave Hill’s President and Executive Director.
What a true delight it was for me to leave behind my meetings, office and the flurry of papers to sit under Wave Hill’s magnificent sugar maple tree and read stories to 20 young children!
This summer, Wave Hill staff are "mystery readers" Tuesday mornings, when we invite children ages three and older to join us outdoors for a story.
Yes, I was the “secret reader” a few Tuesdays ago regaling the preschoolers with the adventures of the runaway bunny and the bird who couldn’t find his mother (my own children’s favorites). It brought me back to my years of teaching – those sure were “the olden days” – and the real joy in sitting quietly on a magnificent summer day and gazing into the faces of these beautiful children visiting Wave Hill.
It was a real unexpected joy and an important reminder of why we work as hard as we do at Wave Hill. All of us should take some time to step out of our everyday routine and put on another persona. To see the world through the eyes of a young child is priceless.
This post from the third week of the internship is the collective report of the Forest Project Summer Collaborative’s newly formed “Social Media Team”. Irene, Yuna and Yura are high school 11th graders; Camilla and Erica are 10th graders.
Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s already been four weeks since the Forest Project Summer Collaborative 2010 began!
This week, all four groups started their trailwork. This involved a few steps—first, the interns went log hunting in Riverdale Park, then gathered rocks, and then made trenches for the logs with axe mattocks and shovels. After sawing the logs, they were embedded them in the soil, carefully and meticulously, so that they would be compacted in the soil.
This was possible with the help of one of this week’s special guests. Marty, pictured here, is an expert in erosion control, especially in meadows. From this experience, members were able to learn the importance of the effects and the benefits of trail bars, water bars, and erosion control in general.
On Wednesday, as on every other Wednesday, Corinne prepared an exciting jeopardy game for the Plant Science students, in order to help them study for their weekly tests. Every week before the game, they get an hour of study, which is very helpful. This week, more than any other week, our students were eager to win the new, fascinating prize—the Taxidermy Trout. After an intense game, Debbie’s crew managed to win the prize, and named it “Troutilla Barry Manilow II.”
This week was also one full of excitement and trips. Forest Project was given the amazing opportunity to visit Teatown lake Reservation in Ossining, New York, on Tuesday. Forest Project interns had fun canoeing in the pond and removing the invasive species water chestnuts. They also got to see other forest environments and observe how the members of Teatown worked with their ecological restoration. It was a truly fun experience, especially because the work involved the canoeing, something which many had never done before. The next trip that Forest Project is planning is on Friday, when interns will go to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to visit Eagle Street, a rooftop farm. The interns are very excited to see this “growing” trend. They will also get a tour of Newtown Creek in Brooklyn. This creek has been undergoing a restoration, so visiting the site will hopefully give Forest Project more insights on transforming spaces. Also, there is an artist, George Trakas, who is leading this restoration, and this is one of the projects in the exhibition that just opened here in Wave Hill’s Glyndor Gallery.
This post from the second week of the internship is the collective report of the Forest Project Summer Collaborative’s newly formed “Social Media Team”. Irene, Yuna and Yura are high school 11th graders; Camilla and Erica are 10th graders.
The second week of the Forest Project Summer Collaborative (FPSC) was also the first week of Plant Science and GIS courses at Lehman College for the FPSC high school interns. Plant Science, a four-credit course, takes place Mondays, while GIS, a three-credit course, is on Wednesdays. Everyone was eager to finally begin their classes and learn new things. On Monday, July 12, 17 crew members headed towards Lehman College (instead of Wave Hill) at 9am. When they arrived, they were greeted by Dr. Suroj Tiwari, a Lehman College Adjunct Professor who has worked in Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil researching ethno-botany. The first class consisted of an introduction to the course; the students learned about the intricate structure of plant cells and the details of mitosis, or cell division. Dr. Tiwari also taught his new students the chemistry that is basic to the course, explaining the chemical molecules of plants, such as lipids and proteins. The important of this information will become clear as the course progresses. Dr. Tiwari explained how each class would reveal the links and the bonds between plants and society.
Let’s not forget about what the GIS interns were doing on this beautiful Monday! While the Plant Science students were furiously taking notes at Lehman College, the GIS students had Wave Hill’s grounds to themselves. They began working on a special project to restore our nursery, which has become overgrown and needs much work. For their special project, GIS students used tools such as rakes and shovels to remove the invasive species that had taken over the nursery, giving the baby native plants, such as dogwood and maples, room to thrive. This was a real emergency rescue mission to aid the plants so dominated by invasives and this incredibly hot summer. After a long day of arduous work, the GIS students cooled off by playing with the hose.
This past week, each work crew has completed a great amount of work on each individual site. There were storms, which has had both positive and negative effects. On Tuesday, the crew members engaged in a regular day of field work, which included weeding invasive species, building trails and working around an obstacle course of poison ivy and thorny multifloral rose bushes. A sudden downpour of rain sent both Lelia and Debbie’s crews running to the gazebo for shelter. There, the two crews set their tools aside and passed the time playing Korean games until Barry came to the rescue with ponchos. Draping their fashionably colorful ponchos over themselves, the crews headed back to the Wave Hill House, where they watched King Corn, a riveting documentary about the influence of corn on society and the surprising extent to which corn is incorporated in our diets.
The following day, the crews were missing the eight GIS members, who were at Lehman College starting a course in geography and mapmaking. There they engaged in intensive hands-on activities, working with 3D computer models. They also worked with Google Earth, an innovative resource that maps global imagery via satellite. Teaching them is an amazing pair of professors, who happen to teach together and be a married couple. After class, the GIS students relaxed on the college campus and enjoyed picking and eating blueberries. Meanwhile, the Plant Science crew members went through a typical day of field work. After lunch, however, a downpour of rain obstructed their work, so they studied for their own college course at Lehman College, through an engaging game of Botany Jeopardy arranged by Corinne, Environmental Educator and Plant Science Facilitator. The winners of the game received pots as prizes.
This Thursday, the crew members experienced their first “site shuffle,” with three crew members rotating to another crew to see how the other sites are like and how each is coming along. Mikey’s site, for example, has many garlic mustard plants, a pest that plagues Wave Hill’s grounds, but it needed more trail work than weeding. Two of the crew members went “log hunting,” searching for logs that weren’t too rotten and could be used as trail bars to mark the trail edges or as water bars to help prevent erosion. The log-hunting expedition, however, was hampered by the storm; the dampness made it hard to find good enough logs, and one of the two logs that were brought back turned out to be rotten. However, it was “enlightening and fun,” as one of the crew members put it.
This week, crew members working at the Day Lilies’ site have been weeding honeysuckle veins which are incredibly long and seem as if they will never end. Another type of weed common to the site is the first- and second-year garlic mustard. First-year garlic mustard is tiny, so it is difficult to weed; the group weeds it together so it can get done quickly. Other unforgettable weeds: porcelain berry, wine berry and multiflora rose (which has been nicknamed Mr. F.). Porcelain berry grows on a tree’s canopy and chokes it, eventually killing the tree. This vine has to be pruned from the bottom and the roots should be pulled out. Wine berry and multifora rose usually grow near each other. These invasive plants are herbaceous, meaning they die out at the end of the growing season, and are very thorny. For many of the crew members it was a challenge having to fight the thorns and take all the bushes down. While some crew members worked on weeding, others were in charge of pulling out trees like the sycamore maples. The group as a whole accomplished a lot, and the site looks very different now. There is more space for mulching and planting to be done. By the end of this week, the Day Lilies crew is hoping to start doing some trail work on the site, but there is still a lot that needs to be done.
At Debbie’s worksite the crew worked diligently on the removal of the few weeds remaining. Located west of Wave Hill House around the border of Riverdale Park, Debbie’s worksite is low lying and prone to being swampy and moist. This past week, the dampness was more pronounced due to the storms during the week. This area has been a mecca for invasive species, such as multifloral rose (Mr. F), garlic mustard, and bishop’s weed. Hiding between invasive and native plants, poison ivy has nestled in surreptitiously. To prevent an increase in this potentially dangerous ivy, Debbie’s crew placed mugwort over the P.I to suffocate it and halt its growth. Debbie’s interns also placed mulch over areas they had weeded. The distinctively foul smell of leaf mulch sickened workers, but the end result will eventually nourish the soil beneath it. Hopefully, this will restore the site’s ecosystem and make the soil a lot healthier for the future.
At Nadilyn’s site, the main objective is to pull out all the mugworts in the meadow, which took up more than half of the field. Behind these pesky, invasive weeds laid beautiful, alluring flowers that did not get enough sunlight or attention. Only after having worked for two weeks were we able to remove all the mugworts and discover these beautiful flowers. The good news is that the pulled mugworts are not all that useless―they are high in demand in places where poison ivy is abundant, as at Debbie’s site. The outcome of all the hard work and effort was more than satisfying. By Thursday, Nadilyn’s crew had created several interconnecting paths to serve as a shortcut to the forest and also had a sufficient work area. Now that the not-so-friendly mugworts are gone and the flowers are visible, there has been a significant increase in the number of butterflies and bees in the meadow. On this particular Thursday, we decided to work in the forest next to the meadow for a change. We pulled out second-year garlic mustard and multifloral rose bushes, which were much easier to pull out than the mugworts because the soil was damp. It is exciting that these new pathways will create an opportunity for visitors to walk through the middle of the meadow and experience it in a whole new way.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog, when we will have videos of the work sites!
This post was provided by second-year crew leader and former intern Michael J. Vasquez, who describes the first week of this 30th-anniversary year of the Forest Project Summer Collaborative internship.
July 11, 2010: Looking out across the lawns, into the woodlands and then out towards the Hudson River and the Palisades, I am always overwhelmed and awestruck by the view. Wave Hill is such a beautiful and amazing place. The fact that the Forest Project Summer Collaborative (FPSC) interns can have a part in keeping Wave Hill such a beautiful and awe inspiring place is a wonderful opportunity.
July 5th, during 105 degree weather, many people were home in their air-conditioning, recovering from their Fourth of July festivities. Not so with the Forest Project interns. They were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Wave Hill grounds by 9am, some even earlier, and eager to begin their summer of forest restoration and maintenance. Starting on the vast lawn below Wave Hill house, in the already warm weather, interns tossed a ball of yarn from person to person forming a web in the center of the circle, as they braved the heat, memorized names and got to know fun facts about each other. Team-building games continued as the day progressed and interns put together tents while blindfolded, did a creative drawing activity and worked together to use dragon cookies to make their way across a field, without the dragon snatching any.
The week continued, as did the soaring temperatures, but this did not stop the determined interns and their Crew leaders from getting in as much work as possible on their sites. The first Tuesday morning after orientation day, crews were at their sites uprooting mugwort, battling garlic mustard and attempting to tame extremely low, hanging branches. It was way too hot to work in the field that afternoon, so more indoor bonding and team-building games took place, including a Forest Project favorite, Mafia, played in two larger groups.
Although site work was done only in the morning, the four crews accomplished over a day’s amount of work. Heaps of weeds and pruned branches piled high at each site, bags of second-year garlic mustard filled dumpsters and Cushman load after Cushman load, as well as a few wheel barrow loads, and were then taken down to the compost pile. During that first half-day of field work alone, the Forest Project interns far surpassed our expectations, especially considering the high temperatures.
Did the pace of work slow during the week? Of course not! Crew leaders and interns had set a standard with their work from day one and had no problem being even more productive with each passing day. I would say that the first week at Wave Hill was incredible, and by Friday it was evident that FPSC is not only about hardcore forest and ecological restoration, but also about education, fun and forging lifelong friendships.
This post was contributed by Armina Del Toro, Wave Hill’s School Programs Manager.
The third year of the Wave Hill-Bronx Institute Salamander Project came to a close on Saturday, May 22, 2010. Salamander Project teens―25 students from MS280-Mosholu Parkway and MS 505-The Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice―and their families came to Wave Hill to watch the students describe their experiences and present their scientific findings for 2010. But before students and families began sharing, they had a chance to learn how a pesky weed could make for a tasty plate.
Salamander Project teens spent many hours this summer collecting data to determine the relationship between salamander populations and invasive plants―garlic mustard, chickweed, bedstraw and Japanese knotweed, to name just a few―in Riverdale Park. They had been curious about the name Garlic Mustard and some students were brave enough to take a nibble of the leaf to experience that garlicky taste. But it did not end there. One afternoon, with go-ahead from Wave Hill’s Director of Horticulture, Scott Canning, the teens spent an hour pulling garlic mustard weeds from Wave Hill’s Woodlands. Such was the students’ enthusiasm that they collected seven large bags in one hour.
Often repeated by the teens, the question “What do we do with all this garlic mustard?” got us thinking “What would Laurel and Charley do” (Laurel Rimmer is Wave Hill’s Assistant Director of Public Programs, and Charles Day the Ruth Rea Howell Horticultural Interpreter.) Cook with it? Why not?
Now, over the previous five weeks the students explored ways of disposing weeds and household vegetable products, investigating Wave Hill’s worm bin and learning that this was one way to mimic processes that naturally occur in the environment. After the worm bin, the students learned about the value of composting and other disposal methods. However, we had never discussed other methods of weed disposal, specifically what can be done with edible plants like Garlic Mustard.
Corinne Flax (Wave Hill Environmental Educator), Marjorie Lune (Bank Street Intern) and yours truly pulled and washed the garlic mustard leaves, prepared the blender, cut bread and laid out all the ingredients for Garlic Mustard Pesto. The delicious smell engulfed the entire room and even we were prone to sneak a taste.
The students were hesitant to taste it, but after carefully dipping a corner of bread into the pesto sauce, they took the ultimate plunge, giving the recipe a taste. There was much scrunching of faces at first, but then their eyebrows lifted and smiles appeared on their faces as almost everyone agreed “It’s not bad”! Some of the students even really liked the pesto―and all of the instructors thought it was delicious.
It was a fitting end to a great program and an invasive weed, proving that we have some great ideas for cooking with invasive plants…Move over Rachel Ray, we’ve got Pest to Pesto, Perfecto!
Pesto Petiolata (or Garlic-Mustard Pesto)
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons pine nuts or walnut pieces
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, about 1 ounce
4 cups garlic mustard leaves (Alliaria petiolata) or 2 cups garlic mustard with 2 cups basil leaves
Place all of the ingredients except the basil in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Add the garlic mustard and/or basil a handful at a time. Blend until all of the greens are incorporated and the pesto is smooth. Makes about 1 cup.
We gratefully credit Whitewater Valley Land Trust for this inspired concoction!
This post was contributed by Armina Del Toro, Wave Hill’s School Programs Manager.
Two years ago, Wave Hill embarked on a partnership with Lehman College’s Bronx Institute; as a result, the Salamander Project was created. For the past two years, 7th and 8th grade students from The Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice (MS 505), and Mosholu Parkway’s MS 280 have come together for an unforgettable outdoor experience. This year marks the third year of this exciting partnership.
Meeting every Saturday for six weeks, Salamander Project students head out, rain or shine, to act as citizen scientists in search of the Red-backed (and Lead-backed) Salamander. What is a citizen scientist, you may ask yourself? Citizen scientists are usually people with little or no scientific training who volunteer time to do research for environmental institutions, as well as on local, national and international environmental initiatives. These volunteer opportunities are critical for compiling data and gathering statistical information about particularly sensitive areas and the species that inhabit them.
The salamander teens work in two areas of Riverdale Park in the Bronx. Site A is a restored site which has been thoroughly maintained by Wave Hill’s Forest Project for 30 years. Site B is an un-restored part of Riverdale Park that has been devoid of salamanders for quite some time. The students involved in the Salamander Project search for salamanders and develop hypotheses about the presence of salamanders, or lack thereof.
25 eager NYC teens, unfamiliar with the woods and their denizens, head into Riverdale Park and break up into teams to explore salamander populations in relation to invasive plant species, invertebrates and soil composition. They use large measuring tapes to set up 30-foot transects. Within these transects the students carefully flip every rock and sweep aside deep leaf litter as they carefully maneuver around the most dangerous of urban flora―poison ivy. (It helps to remember the old rhyme “Leaves of three let them be. Hairy rope, don’t be a dope”, to keep in mind the characteristics of poison ivy.)
The students call out to their teammates to remind them to watch their step. As a student gently turns over a rock or log there is a nervous excitement. Will there be a salamander underneath? Under the first log, a centipede scurries quickly to safety while a millipede curls up to hide from the light. No salamander. Under the next log, the students find nothing but some seeds sprouting and last year’s leaf skeletons. Recording their findings and slightly disappointed, they head over to the next rock. “Rock number five” calls out one of the team members as they quickly scan the underside. Suddenly, someone yells out “I found one!” Startled, the salamander pauses as though he were examining the students. With their gloved hands the students reach in, grab the salamander and quickly measure its body length and observe its color “Red-backed, 1 inch in length”.
Although there were some “Eww, salamanders are gross” in the beginning sessions, the students have now established a relationship with these animals and treat them like diamonds. In a forest ecosystem like Riverdale Park, that is exactly what salamanders are. Salamanders are known as bio-indicators or ecological indicators, because if they are present your forest is likely to be healthy. It is our hope that this experience will help students recognize their local environment and promote future stewards of the environment.
I am already looking forward to May 22, when the teens will present their findings in a final celebration of the Salamander Project. I hope that this is an experience they will remember well into adulthood.
Marjorie Lune is a Wave Hill School Programs Intern this spring. She is a student in the Bank Street Graduate School of Education’s Museum Education Program.
On my third day interning at Wave Hill, I went birdwatching for the first time with Dan Trudeau, a Wave Hill Environmental Educator, in preparation for an upcoming school program. We went over bird identification tools, and he shared a game that we play with the kids to introduce them to the different bird calls. And then we headed out with binoculars.
It was a cold, clear day, just right for birdwatching. Of course, some birds migrate so we knew we wouldn’t see as many different species as we will later on this spring. On the other hand, most of the trees are bare so the birds are easier to spot.
Immediately, Dan spotted a few European starlings up in the top of a tall tree. I could see them, but they were just small, dark figures. I tried to see them through the binoculars, but had a hard time switching between noticing the figure and placing them in my binoculars. I tried several times, but I struggled to focus on the same location.
I lowered my binoculars and looked around hoping to see something that would be easier to focus on. As I turned I saw a big bird flying high up in the sky behind the house. I said, “Look, there’s a bird, what’s that?” Dan turned to look where I was pointing and said, “That’s an American bald eagle!” I put the binoculars up again—and this time I immediately focused on the right place. I guess a bald eagle is more of a motivation than a starling. The eagle was just drifting and turning, floating on the currents of air. We watched him until he was out of our sight; he never flapped a wing. It was incredible. I’ve never seen a bald eagle in the wild before. It was so beautiful. I could clearly see the white head and tail feathers, and the way it turned on the wind.
When we could not see the eagle any longer, we moved on to see what other kinds of birds we could find. We heard some bluejays, and saw a robin, a couple of fat mockingbirds sitting in a bush and a little brown house sparrow hopping on the ground. As I was watching the sparrow, Dan suddenly said, “Oh wow!” I turned around just in time to see the eagle swooping low over the tops of some trees near Glyndor House. Dan ran up the stairs to the upper terrace of Wave Hill House to try to get a better look. I followed, just in time to see it glide up and back over toward the river. It was so exciting. One of Wave Hill’s gardeners told us that three of them had been seen that morning. It made us wonder whether we saw two different eagles or the same one twice.
This was my first official birdwatching expedition. I can’t believe that I was lucky enough to see an American bald eagle. I guess you could call it beginner’s luck.
Daniel Trudeau is a Wave Hill Environmental Educator.
During a recent trip to P.S. 340 in the Bronx, the Education staff at Wave Hill brought out an impressive natural artifact, much to the surprise and—in some cases—delight of the school’s 3rd grade classes.
In mid-November, Assistant Director of Horticulture Brian McGowan spotted a large hornets’ nest in one of the magnolia trees on the Wave Hill grounds, and was kind enough to extract it and pass it along to the Education Department. The nest, a papery, basketball-sized globe marked with colorful bands and textured swirls, was likely built by a colony of bald-faced hornets (also known as white-faced hornets).
The students at P.S. 340 were intrigued by the magnolia buds popping out of the sides of the nest—exposed tips of the branches that the hornets use as a load-bearing framework. And while some students were initially leery, nearly all were excited to touch and observe the structure up close. Bald-faced hornets can have a bad reputation because of their resemblance to more aggressive yellow jackets. But, unlike the ground-dwelling yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets nest in trees and are unlikely to harass people for food or to sting unless provoked.
Wasps and hornets build the intricate combs and delicates sheaths of their nests out of a paste made from wood fibers and saliva. In cold-weather climates, colonies last for just one year, as only fertilized females (queens) survive the winter to lay eggs and build anew. As a result, the nest that Brian pulled from the magnolia was likely humming with activity a few months ago, but has gone silent with the onset of chillier temperatures.
The colony’s troops of workers and drones have died off. But somewhere on the Wave Hill grounds, next year’s potential queens are hibernating before taking on the sizable job of rebuilding the nest and repopulating the colony come spring.
Source: West Virginia University Extension Service http://www.wvu.edu/~exten/infores/pubs/pest/hpm7002.pdf
Daniel Trudeau is a Wave Hill Environmental Educator.
We’re awash in warblers here at Wave Hill. Numerous sightings of Yellow-Rumped Warblers have been among the highlights of our recent bird-watching walks with elementary school students.
These frantic little guys have been going crazy over the plentiful seeds and berries here at Wave Hill for the past week. They typically pass through New York State in huge numbers on their annual migration.
We first noticed the brown and yellow birds thrashing noisily in the bayberry shrubs outside Wave Hill House, and we’ve been seeing them all around the grounds ever since.
The Yellow-Rumped Warbler’s telltale field marking is – not surprisingly – a yellow splash of color on the tail that seems to flash at you as the bird flies away, earning them the nickname, “butter-butt.” Yellow markings on the chest near the wing and on top of the head are also key identifying features.
This fine images comes courtesy of Alan D. Wilson at www.naturepicsonline.com.
When these warblers pass through again next spring, they’ll be sporting different plumage – a classier gray, black and white outfit. But like many migratory species, they don’t stay in one place for long at this time of year. Come out and see them before it’s too late!
Leigh Ross, Assistant Curator at Wave Hill’s Glyndor Gallery, provided this posting.
Last winter, our Visual Arts and Education Departments collaborated to present Wave Hill’s first-ever public-program participants’ exhibition, Naturally Inspired. Displayed in Wave Hill House, it featured a truly exceptional selection of paintings, works on paper, photography and Family Art Project creations. I thought the show was a great success. I was fascinated to see the unique and intimate view of Wave Hill evident in each piece, and impressed to see how, cumulatively, they spoke to the richness of Wave Hill’s landscape and the variety of techniques taught in our workshops. Carol Mangis, one of the artist’s featured in Naturally Inspired, had this to say about her experience: “The photography workshop I took two winters ago with Benjamin Swett was truly helpful to me, as an amateur shooter, and I was really happy with some of the photos that resulted. So when Wave Hill called for submissions for the workshop show last year, I was thrilled; even more so when they accepted one of my pictures for the show. Wave Hill means a lot to me. It was an honor to have my photo displayed at one of my favorite places in the world, and an inspiration to view the work of other participants. “
Carol Mangis' photograph from last year's exhibition. Submissions for this year's exhibition are due October 8.
This year we plan to reprise the public-program participants’ exhibition with Illuminating Nature, scheduled to be up November 27, 2009–February 28, 2010. Paula Morvay, Wave Hill’s Nature and Art Programs Manager, has set a deadline of Thursday, October 8, 2009, for the Call for Submissions. This is intended only for current and previous participants of Wave Hill art workshops and the Artists’ Circle Program and for artwork not previously exhibited at Wave Hill. For basic questions, please contact me, Leigh Ross, at 718.549.3200 x397, or leighr@wavehill.org.
