Philadelphians were alerted last month to possible industrial pollutants spilling over the Bartram’s Mile Trail at Bartram’s Garden. Authorities have assured everyone that there are few to no environmental or health impacts, but lingering concerns about their response remain. It should be noted that Bartram’s Garden is fully open and they’ve taken precautions to ensure visitor safety and prevent contact with the nearby pollution discussed in this post.

It was a visitor who eventually alerted local officials and Bartram’s Garden about the situation in July, although the odd green substance, later determined to be chromium, was first seen in April. It is not clear why there was such a reporting delay or why the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (PADEP) did not notify potentially affected parties about the possibly hazardous liquid.  Once PADEP determined that the substance was not a direct threat to the drinking water supply because the location was well downstream of the drinking water intakes, it was deemed a non-threat overall and no further notifications were warranted. However, although it was not a drinking water issue, and although it is considered low risk to aquatic environments, contact with chromium can pose health concerns.  Chromium is considered a mutagen by the EPA. Some forms of the metal present a cancer risk after prolonged inhalation or ingestion, and acute effects involve skin damage and allergic reactions.  PADEP acknowledged that the recent Bartram’s sampling found 4 of 11 soil samples exceeded their standard.  While, again, there was no hazard to drinking water, we think these potential exposures were serious enough to merit a swifter public notice on the part of PADEP.

PADEP also concluded that although the substance was a potential pollutant and presented an ongoing issue, it did not constitute an environmental violation. Both the Philadelphia Water Department and the Philadelphia Fire Department Hazardous Materials Unit determined there was no contaminated runoff – and it is indeed possible that the ooze was coming from the subsurface. The entire area is underlain by highly porous sand and gravel, so contaminated liquids could move easily through the ground. Still, the trail walker observed some overland flow at this point and there is likely some subsurface contact with river water. In both instances it is safe to say the substance is getting into the river whether it’s a clear regulatory violation or not.

What’s concerning is the lack of regulatory curiosity as to where this green ooze is coming from. Chromium is a byproduct of steel manufacturing and this land area adjacent to Bartram’s Garden has a long history of industrial use, and specifically, steel production. The Ryerson company manufactured steel nearby and was in operation for at least half a century. A 1980 study by the USGS found a tiny percentage of groundwater samples collected in Philadelphia exceeded the EPA standard for chromium and these concentrations were attributed to industrial processes.  While the 1980 USGS study did not find a widespread problem in Philadelphia, another Ryerson steel plant in Oregon was cited by the EPA as a contributor to a Superfund site.  ALL samples taken as part of that environmental study contained chromium.

We believe the likely source of the chromium at Bartram’s Garden is the old steel plant one quarter of a mile away. If that is the source of the chromium, we wonder how widespread this contamination is, and we believe it warrants a broader investigation prior to adaptive reuse at this site. At a minimum, Bartram’s Garden and Southwest Philadelphia residents should be provided detailed information from the state about the risks to park visitors, nearby neighbors, and the general public.

For further information about the incident and conditions on the ground, Bartram’s Garden has an informative webpage.

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The funds awarded to our partner Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) will spur the assessment and remediation of the riverfront site, which spans slightly less than an acre and is currently contaminated with lead and and semi-volatile organic compounds after decades of industrial use. Once the land has been remediated, plans will advance for major new riverfront developments: the Garden’s new Field Station & Welcome Center, complete with a realignment of the Bartram’s Mile Trail to the newly accessible riverfront, and a portion of PIDC’s Lower Schuylkill Biotech Campus.

Speaking at the event, Executive Director Maitreyi Roy noted, “Safe and clean land opens up opportunities for new businesses, green spaces, and community projects . . . . Our neighborhood will thrive, not just survive. The powerful message is that no community should bear the brunt of environmental degradation and that everyone deserves to live in a safe and healthy environment.”

Learn more about the event and the EPA’s national brownfield remediation program in recent news coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY, the Guardian, and Delaware Currents.

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As an artist with over 30 years of exhibitions in the Philadelphia region, Ann has recently become interested in exhibiting outdoors as her current work is focused on an increased attention to the natural world and its preservation. The series of paintings exhibited at Bartram’s Garden include many local insects, an often overlooked but vital part in the balance of nature.

Ann writes, “The magic of fireflies and the summer music of cicadas and katydids are part of the series. All of the pieces attempt to move beneath consciousness into our core of being that moves deeply back towards our creation. There is reverence, joy, fear, and awe. There is an urgent and impossible pull to grasp the interconnectedness of all life. With this, my most recent work has moved to touch other beings we share the earth with.”

Guardians of the Earth will live in the Garden through October, but if you’d like to bring one of these pieces home with you, the originals are available for purchase! Reach out to Ann at www.annhwilson.com.

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As we prepare for the exciting return of public River Programs such as Free Fishing and Free Boating, it’s also time to dust off our water sampling equipment and start collecting weekly water samples once again. As you’re reading this, you might be wondering, “Wait, Bartram’s monitors water quality?” Since 2018, our staff, interns, and volunteers have been conducting weekly sampling of the river water at our public dock to assess E.coli bacterial levels and other parameters in the river!

The Tidal Schuylkill is enjoyed by thousands of visitors who participate in free river programs each season at the Bartram’s Garden Community Boathouse. We and our non-human friends, like the 40 species of fish that thrive in the river today, enjoy our river because of the vast improvement in water quality spurred by the closing of coal plants and factories at the end of the 20th century. However, this section of the river still experiences a frequent source of pollution that affects the safety of close contact with the water.

The lower, tidal portion of the Schuylkill River (between Fairmount Dam and Fort Mifflin) is lined with 40 combined sewer outfalls (CSOs) that can discharge untreated municipal sewage and stormwater into the river when it rains. This context cannot be ignored in our efforts to offer free river activities like boating and fishing. The combined sewer system that serves much of Philadelphia is designed to handle both wastewater and stormwater in the same pipe, but when there’s heavy rainfall or snowmelt, the sewer pipes or treatment plants may not be able to handle the increased flow. In such cases, the EPA allows Philadelphia, along with other cities with combined sewer systems, to discharge excess wastewater into nearby water bodies to prevent safety issues caused by flooding.^[1] The Philadelphia Water Department provides online tools called Philly RiverCast and CSOcast, to help us know if the water is safe for recreational activities. However, Philly RiverCast is based on conditions in the Schuylkill above Fairmount Dam, outside the influence of the CSOs we deal with on the lower portion of the river, where Bartram’s Garden is located.^[2]

Our water sampling efforts supplement the data that the Water Department collects and are also specific to our little stretch of the Schuylkill River. This is an essential part of our commitment to ensuring the health and safety of our community. We focus our sampling efforts on E.coli bacteria levels because this is the specific bacteria that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) use to define water quality standards for activities such as boating. We also host an EnviroDIY Mayfly monitoring station in the river near our dock that measures and records physical and chemical properties of the water. Sampling the water over time allows us to observe patterns and look out for what environmental factors might correlate with high bacterial counts. We’ve learned that bacteria levels are variable, meaning they are affected by so many factors that we cannot predict them based on one thing.

However, the data collected over time combined with rainfall records have informed our protocol of canceling our Free Saturday Boating program in the event of at least 0.25 inches of rainfall within the previous 24 hours. This means that even on a beautiful, sunny Saturday, we sometimes have to cancel due to rain on Friday. On the day of a scheduled program, you can always check the calendar at bartramsgarden.org or look on our Facebook or Instagram page for cancellation announcements, which are posted at least two hours before the start time, or call the Welcome Center at (215) 729-5281.

In addition to evaluating our own policies, we also advocate for the Department of Environmental Protection to collect more water quality data and reassess recreational use assessments of the Schuylkill River. We look forward to a future where we’ll be talking about the huge improvements in water quality as a result of City investment in traditional and green infrastructure and CSO reductions.

You can learn more about our water quality monitoring and advocacy here! 

^[1] Recreation in Philadelphia’s Waterways: What to Know – Philadelphia Water Department

^[2]  Philly RiverCast

The post Spotlight on Water Quality Monitoring appeared first on Bartram's Garden.

Almost one year past the date of Joel’s surprising illness and death, I still find myself in a state of confusion as I try to carry on the work he provided so much guidance for. Increasingly, I learn to turn towards the body of work Joel left behind for us all. It is a wealth of research, a deep well to draw from. His impact on me personally as a friend and mentor continues to reveal itself to me on a daily basis. I’d like to offer some words to begin to describe just some of the ways Joel generously shared his perspective and knowledge with me and so many I have worked with over the years.

For those who are not necessarily plant nerds, I ask you to be patient with me here as I will be using many binomial names of plants. It is the language I spoke with Joel.

I remember my first experience of a Joel email, sent on November 14, 2007: I was a third-year seasonal garden intern here at Bartram’s Garden and I had asked for his thoughts on planting goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) under the Sassafras trees near the entrance to the botanical garden from the meadow. He returned with this extraordinary response:

Goldenseal, Hydrastis canadensis would be very appropriate for the bed under the sassafras by the meadow. Todd [Greenberg] and I walked over and talked a bit about this planting area today. The shade and needle mulch from the white pine and hemlock adjacent seems ideal for a number of interesting dry woodland plants the Bartrams grew.

There is quite a bit of correspondence from John Bartram about what he called “yellow root” which is goldenseal. Bartram sent roots to Philip Miller at the Chelsea Physick Garden in the fall of 1756, and these were perhaps the earliest plants of Hydrastis canadensis in England. William Bartram also drew the plant for Peter Collinson, around 1758, and the drawing survives in the Earl of Derby’s library near Liverpool.

I have put together a list of other possible plants for the area under the sassafras. A few of John Bartram’s medicinal plants which are not in the other medicinal beds might also do well:

American ginseng, Panax quinquefolium
dwarf ginseng, Panax trifolius
wild sarsparilla, Aralia nudicaulis
robin’s plantain, Erigeron pulchellus
puttyroot, Adam-and-Eve, Aplectrum hyemale
ground pine, Lycopodium complanatum (and/or other Lycopodium species)
pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea (may need more sun)
Seneca snakeroot, Polygala senega
perfoliate bellwort, Uvularia perfoliata
blazing star, devil’s bit, Chamaelirium luteum

Other possible orchids:
pink lady’s-slipper, Cypripedium acule
yellow lady’s slipper, Cypripedium parviflorum
large twayblade, Liparis liliifolia
downy rattlesnake plantain, Goodyera pubescens

Other herbaceous plants with important Bartram connections:
wood lily, Lilium philadelphicum
American wintergreen, Pyrola Americana
pipsissewa, Chimaphila umbellata
striped prince’s pine,Chimaphila maculata
Also, any dry-adapted ferns

Possible Shrubs:
New Jersey tea, redroot, Ceanothus americanus—if there is enough sun.

Vines, possibly on the fence:
Alleghany vine, climbing fumatory, Adlumia fungosa
American bittersweet, Celastrusscandens

Joel

Over the years I’ve tried growing many of the plants on this list in different places in the Garden, to greater and lesser degrees of success. All my efforts and experiments were noticed and followed with interest and encouragement by Joel. This first email I have from him, I would find out later, is characteristic of the way he encouraged everyone in their curiosity, no matter who they were: zero consideration given to whether a person had impressive credentials or whatever.

Joel noticed every plant that grew on the land here. His extremely consistent practice of observation was a great teacher to me––and in particular, combined with the generosity with which he shared all he learned, is one of the best demonstrations of love in action that I have encountered in my life.

Most days, toward the end of the day, Joel would emerge from the archive for a late afternoon walk through the garden to look at stuff. I still expect to see him toward the end of my workday walking around with his camera around his neck, checking everything out.  On my luckier days, his walk would pass by wherever in the garden I was working, and we would have a chat. These chats consisted almost exclusively of gossip about the plants in the garden: how everything is doing, what’s in bloom, what has seeds, what is struggling and why, what plants would be good to collect from various places, interesting tidbits about this or that plant, how to grow them, where they are found in the wild, varying relationships to specific plants in different cultures, etc. But in particular,  Joel would communicate his very strong opinions about how and what we were growing around the garden, always with suggestions of what would be good to add. Always, always encouraging every gardener to continue experimenting with the plants listed in the Bartram family catalogues and restore the garden here to the bastion of diversity and deep horticultural prowess and botanical research that it was during the period when the Bartrams tended it.

I was lucky enough to be allowed to accompany Joel and other botanist friends on plant adventures: days of going out and about to observe the intricate details about the way plants relate to various soils and to each other. This is how he showed me how to think about the garden here at Bartram’s Garden and how to embody the spirit of an ecological gardener.

Another way that Joel embodied the botanical curiosity of the Bartram-era Garden was how he would collect seeds during his time out studying various landscapes. Any time he traveled to give a lecture or attend a conference, he brought seeds back for the gardeners here to grow: plastic baggies with the scientific name of the plant and the place where he collected them. He wanted us to try to grow everything and anything.

A couple of the very special plants that we have in the garden here that are a result of this relationship are Hibiscus laevis and Oenothera grandiflora, which Joel collected in the Tensaw River Valley on a trip to the Bartram Trail Conference in 2007.

Joel collected the Hibiscus laevis, or Halberd-Leaved Hibiscus, seed we grow here at the Garden near the Tensaw River, where he saw the plant growing in a bald cypress swamp. He was very excited for us to bring it back to the Garden, as he knew that a seed packet of this plant from 1800 was found in the Woodlands mansion, identified in William Bartram’s handwriting. The plant had been offered for sale through the Bartram nursery as early as 1807 under the name Hibiscus militaris so it is cool to offer fresh seed of the plant each year in our Welcome Center today.

Of Oenothera grandiflora, he wrote in 2008 in The Traveller:

a plant of William Bartram’s “most pompous and brilliant herbaceous plant,” the golden evening-primrose or Oenothera grandiflora, was brought from near Stockton, Alabama, to Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia. The root quite happily survived the winter and has been growing immense all summer. There are now probably a dozen stems, five to six feet tall. In spite of the luxuriant growth, only in the last week of August has it begun to form flower buds, with the first opening on August 27th. With the stock of developing buds, it looks like it will soon be flowering in abundance. I’m not sure if the rather late bloom time is natural for this species, or the result of drought from mid-summer onward, or repeated attacks by Japanese beetles. During July it was possible to pull handfuls of beetles off the plant daily. The plant survived the period with riddled leaves, but continued to grow.

He further wrote, “What we are most hoping is that it will produce a lot of seed so we can be sure to continue William’s evening primrose here in future and distribute some seed.” Joel wrote an essay about this plant, and in particular William Bartram’s first encounter with it in 1775 and his enraptured interest in it, in Fields of Vision: Essays on the Travels of William Bartram edited by Kathryn Braund and Charlotte Porter. We still grow the offspring of the specimen Joel collected in the Garden today and offer its seeds for sale through the Welcome Center.

Another example of how Joel championed the sharing of seeds was the Franklinia altamaha. Especially in this day and age, when most people are starting to grow the much more easily cultivated Gordlinia hybrid, Joel adamantly encouraged us to commit ourselves to embracing the mysteries of cultivating Franklinia. He watched carefully the many failures and few successes people had with this shrub and formed a hypothesis that Franklinia is reliant on some particular mycorrhizal association. Joel followed up for many years with people interested in a one-year Franklinia census made in 2000 by Longwood Garden that tracked those who were cultivating the plant. The census attracts attention even to this day, and Joel often sent seeds from the garden here to many people who get in touch seeking information on how to grow the mysterious plant, once again, encouraging all curious seekers.

In recent years, Joel was sending the immature embryos from the fruit of Franklinias at Bartram’s Garden to PhD candidate Heather Gladfelter at the University of Georgia for her use putting them into tissue culture for propagation and studying their genetic diversity. He also encouraged me to send her the immature seeds of the Franklinias at Horticultural Hall in West Fairmount Park, as he pointed out that these trees, being planted by the Meehan brothers in that location for the Centennial Exhibition, are likely the most direct living descendants of the plants propagated from wild seed by the Bartrams.

At the time of his illness, I asked Joel what writing he is most proud of and he said it was the new chapter on Franklinia he had published in 2022 in The Attention of a Traveller edited by Kathryn Braund. It is indeed a beautifully detailed piece of research and an in-depth view of the history of the Franklinia tree. I believe this bit of writing is a taste of the deep writing about plants, building on his decades of research, that Joel would have continued if he had been given the time.

Another piece of research that resulted in publication was Joel’s intense study of Narcissus in the Garden. He tracked and studied the different varieties of Narcissus here over years, eventually creating a map of their locations in the garden in 2013, which was contributed to the 2015 book, Daffodils in American Gardens, 1733-1940 by Sara L. Van Beck. Through his research and the long correspondence with Sara Van Beck, Joel identified several very old cultivars of Narcissus here, potentially dating their planting to the antebellum period of the garden when Andrew Eastwick employed Thomas Meehan here as his Head Gardener, and perhaps some varieties from even earlier.

Joel’s study of the Narcissus varieties in the garden led him to encourage our proper cultivation of these relics. He encouraged us to transplant the overgrown clumps to encourage better flowering and to continue the theme of daffodil-lined paths from the Meehan-period garden, observable in photographs. Joel emailed me care manuals, encouraging me to collect wood ash for their proper fertilization. All of this, and his staunch insistence on delaying the mowing of spring lawns until the decay of the bulb foliage, has resulted in definitively more spectacular bloom displays in the spring––weather permitting!

Joel did extensive research into the plant catalogs published by the Bartram nursery throughout its history and into the letters, writings, and notes of the literate family members to create an extensive plant list spanning their three generations that we still use as the curated plant list that guides our collections in the botanical garden here. Each of these plants of course can be considered and studied from so many perspectives: ecological, economic, and cultural. Though the plant list is derived from the limited source of the Bartram family’s writings, that limitation only spurs a curious gardener on to numerous and infinite stories that one could tell about any particular plant. Joel was interested in all of that.

I could go on and on about Joel’s expansive research into particular plants related to the history here. I could spend multiple lifetimes horticulturally interpreting Joel’s  emails and articles regarding innumerable plants: mosses, rhododendrons, tea, hawthorne, rhubarb, his work with Nancy Wygant on indexing plant names in John Bartram’s correspondence, their work on William Bartram’s list of agricultural crops from this region, their research exploring dahlia cultivars of the Ann Bartram Carr period, their study of illustrations from Lodigge’s Botanical Cabinet to identify specific Camellia varieties for the re-establishment of the Ann Bartram Carr Garden, Joel’s writing on North American medicinal plants as written about by John Bartram, and so much more. All this as well as Joel’s extensive work on interpretive plans for the Garden can all be referred to over the long run. I believe that Joel’s research can and will inspire many generations of gardeners here at Bartram’s Garden and beyond.

I’m so grateful to my colleague Aseel Rasheed for taking decisive action to bring Joel to the hospital during his short illness. It allowed many of us to have final conversations with Joel. My last conversations with him are very special to me: and keeping with the theme of our relationship, we mostly discussed plants and the Garden during those visits. The most remarkable thing I take away from those visits was his candor, which was relatively unfazed by what must have been incredible physical discomfort. Joel seemed to be observing the experience almost objectively and with detached interest, a true scientist to the last.

And he seemed to really enjoy chatting about the Garden at that time. At the time of these visits, spring was opening up, and it seemed impossible to me that he was not able to be in the Garden for the ritual parade of phenology which marked our days in common. I decided to bring him bouquets of whatever was blooming on the day of the hospital visit. I loved how he could look through the bouquet and could say where each bloom had come from: one sweet example was a bloom from a strange crabapple that randomly placed itself deep in the border along the back path of the Wilderness Garden that always surprises me there with its spectacular early blooms. He said, “Is this that weird crabapple from the back path?”

He repeatedly asked for hyacinths, as he was a great lover of fragrance in gardens, though the hyacinths didn’t bloom in earnest until the days following his death.

During my last visit before Joel’s death, I asked him about what plants he would want for a new garden in his memory––“Joel’s evergreen grove” was the prompt I suggested. With almost no hesitation, here is the plant list he rattled off for the garden: two- and three-needle pines, loblolly pines, rhododendrons, kalmia, bear oak, blackjack oak, lilies lady slippers, wintergreen, trailing arbutus, grasses, and dwarf conifers. He also added, “Plant two of everything because one will die”––an interesting Joel-like adaptation of John Bartram’s quest to collect two of everything!

I am looking forward to planting this garden in Joel’s memory in the coming years, though in truth, the entire Garden for me is touched with his memory. I think of his words and observation––his careful noticing––in every corner of the land here.

Recently, the folks at the Woodlands wrote to ask if we had any opinions about bulbs that would be appropriate for planting at Joel’s gravesite. I’m so much looking forward to collaborations with Robin Rick, the gardener over at the Woodlands, to find ways to recall Joel’s story through plants. I suggested it would be special if we could dig some of the very old daffodil bulbs from Bartram’s Garden to transplant them at Joel’s gravesite as he was so intensely interested in the daffodils here. Robin also suggested that bulbs might be used to mark areas of Joel’s archeological research at the Woodlands, where there is a little more sun.

A small group of the Garden’s staff joined our friends at the Woodlands to plant bulbs for Joel at his gravesite in Fall 2023. We had a long list of possible favorites to include: some of the double ‘Telemonious Plenus’, the double ‘Sulphur Pheonix’, and ‘Emperor’ daffodils, and he also really looked forward to Narcissus poeticus recurvus each year. But then other possibilities kept emerging, like Claytonia tuberosus (spring beauty), Eranthis hyemale (winter aconite), Galanthus nivalis ‘flore pleno’ (double snowdrops), Sanguinarea canadensis (bloodroot), Hepatica nobilis var japonica ‘flore pleno’ (double Japanese hepatica) to honor Joel’s Japanophilia, fragrant hyacinths, and the species tulip, Tullipa sylvestris, because it’s long-lived without any maintenance, strange and twisty, and still grows in the vacant lot near where John Bartram is buried.

Mandy Katz is Lead Gardener and Land Manager at Bartram’s Garden.

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Register by November 7!

In partnership with TreePhilly and the ROOTS Tree Crew, sign-ups are now available to receive free trees for residents of the 19143 and 19142 zip codes. Priority for neighbors between 49th Street and 65th Street.

Trees will be available for pick-up at Connell Park, 6401 Elmwood Ave, on Saturday, November 11. 

Click here to register for a tree in 19143 or 19142.

Other details:

• You may request up to two trees per planting address. To request a second tree, submit the form and re-fill it out again for the second tree.  Trees are available while supplies last. Seeking more trees for a special project? Email info@treephilly.org.
• Trees are available for Philadelphia residents only and must be planted in the ground (not in a pot) on private property in the city of Philadelphia. Residents are responsible for the care of the tree and may receive a maximum of 6 total trees per address. For more information on caring for your new tree, visit FAQ PAGE.
• For information on getting a free tree to plant in yards in other parts of the city, go to TreePhilly.org.
• To sign up for a free street tree planted between the sidewalk and the street, go HERE.

TreePhilly is a program of Philadelphia Parks and Recreation in partnership with the Fairmount Park Conservancy.

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Winners:

Stephon Mumford caught the first fish of the day at 8:04 AM, and James Giles caught the last, in the final minute of the competition!

The prize for most fish caught went to Gary Thomas, who reeled in a whopping 18 fish! James Giles was the runner-up with 11 fish, followed closely by 4-year-old Nora who brought in 10!

Stephon Mumford won for biggest fish with a 24-inch catfish. Allegedly Ka-Ron Thomas caught an American eel that was “like 3 feet,” which was not measured or photographed, but earned Ka-Ron the prize for weirdest fish. Nafis Zollicoffer and Lucy Mercorella hauled in the next two largest catfish, and Lucy’s was her first ever catch!

The smallest fish, a 3.5-inch emerald shiner, was caught by the smallest angler, August.

It was a beautiful and exciting morning, and heartwarming to see experienced anglers helping first-timers to catch their first fish. We’re grateful to Coach Todd of Mid-Atlantic Youth and Outdoors Partners for coming out to help identify, measure, and release all those fish!

The post 2023 Southwest Fish-Off appeared first on Bartram's Garden.

This interview originally appeared in the September 2023 edition of the Southwest Globe Times newspaper.

Would you each introduce yourselves?

Leslie Gale (left), School Education Manager at Bartram’s Garden, and Beverly Ritter, first-grade English Language Arts teacher at John M. Patterson School.

Leslie Gale (LG): Everybody under the age of 15 who comes to Bartram’s Garden knows me as Mrs. Leslie, or occasionally “the lady with the strange seedpods” or “the lady who will show us where the snakes live in the winter.” I’ve been working here at Bartram’s Garden for 17 years. I’ve been an outdoor educator for 19 years, and before that I was a classroom teacher.

Beverly Ritter (BR): I am a first-grade ELA [English Language Arts] teacher at Patterson Elementary. Go Patterson Bears! My students know me as Ms. Ritter. I’ve been at Patterson for 12 years, teaching first grade, and this year I’m very excited because I will transition to becoming the full-time literacy teacher. My co-worker and I will co-teach: Mr. Console will teach math, I will teach literacy. We’re very excited to begin this new school year. And I just found out that Mrs. Leslie is “the dissecting woman”!

LG: That’s my superhero name! “Let’s open up this plant and find where those seeds began!” Also, I want kids to know that nature doesn’t just exist in a park like Bartram’s Garden—[you] can nurture and see and encourage nature on your block, in your school yard. I also never want them to think this is just a place they go for school: I want them to know it’s a park, they can bring their families, they can just come for fun!

Tell us about this new partnership between the Garden and schools like Patterson.

LG: Bartram’s Garden is working closely with Southwest public schools like Patterson Elementary: students come to the Garden 2–3 times per month, and Teacher Marion and I are going into the classrooms 2–3 times a month, so kids are seeing us a lot more. The curriculum parallels what the teachers are doing so that we’re supporting what they’re doing in the classrooms—so if Ms. Ritter’s class is learning habitats, we can look at different habitats: “Let’s look at the pond! What’s different about the pond?” and help develop that vocabulary around noticing, observing, and asking questions. The teachers set the curriculum and it’s beautiful, so we’re supplementing it so that kids are getting these authentic outdoors, in-nature experiences that are enriching what they’re learning, enriching their language development, enriching their physical development.

BR: We started [this partnership] last year, and . . . it’s great because in fourth grade at Patterson, the students have a collaboration with John Heinz [National Wildlife Refuge]. This is getting them used to and exposed to nature, learning the vocabulary, learning how to take care of the environment, what are the native wildlife that live here.

LG: The third grade did a unit on weather, so we did a whole day about clouds, and we talked about evaporation, precipitation, and even climate change. The kids and I started talking about “Where’s the snow?” We drew the different kinds of clouds in white crayon on black paper so that they could identify different kinds of clouds and notice, “That one’s a fair-weather cloud, but ooh, that one’s going to make rain.” I could talk about weather for hours!

BR: I want to do that lesson!

LG: Last year I started out [teaching] navigation across the board. [The first-graders could] do pop quizzes: Which direction is east? Where’s west?

BR: [We want] them to learn to navigate the grounds. We purchased compasses for them! In the classroom we started talking about directions, and we learned how to read the compass and navigate to different areas in the school building. The students navigated until they could find a treasure box with a classroom prize, like 10 minutes of extra recess. The students were working with partners and taking turns trying to read the compass.

So the students are also learning to work together.

BR: Coming [to Bartram’s Garden] helps the students learn to regulate themselves, have patience, be able to cooperate—all those things are helping them make connections in the brain!

LG: It’s also interpersonal! Being able to navigate walking through the grounds and understanding where your body ends and the next person begins [so you don’t bump into your friend]. How do we share information quietly? How do we move together? Beverly and I were talking a couple weeks ago, and I have realized I want to do more stories—both going into the classroom and reading stories, and doing shared writing. I trained as a reading recovery teacher and I see how important that reading, storytelling, and writing all is to developing somebody who is a thinker and an explorer.

And developing empathy!

LG: Yes, and not just with other people but with other organisms: the land, the animals, the plants.

BR: Mrs. Leslie does a wonderful job at bringing that out in the students when we’re reading and writing. She’s excellent at explaining what we’re doing, she’s very thorough. And the students get excited! They love to see her!

LG: In my ideal, I’m partners with the kids. When we were walking through the Garden, I noticed that the sound of the conversation changed as we were walking down a winding path: it affects them like magic. The attention is less about messing with a buddy and more about “What’s that bird I’m hearing? What’s in the ground?”

BR: [They’re] building curiosity.

LG: And the questions they come up with are so amazing and sophisticated! And that’s part of giving kids the vocabulary—they have the ideas, they have the questions. But [we’re] giving them the language so they . . . have the words to describe it.

BR: May I show you something? This is why it is so important to expose children to as much as possible when they’re in their early childhood years. This is a picture showing the neuron [connections] in a child’s brain. Those connections are made and become stronger every time new information is taken in. When children are around 7, the end of early childhood, those connections that are not strong start to fall off. . . . What’s left is the foundation for learning for the rest of their lives, so we want them to have as strong a foundation as possible.

Ms. Ritter shared this diagram showing how neuron connections, known as synapses, get stronger and more numerous during early childhood, but only the strongest connections are retained in adulthood. Source: JL Corel, The postnatal development of the human cerebral cortex (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1975.

How can we help children build those connections for learning?

BR: Children learn through play. We may think that they’re just running around in circles, but they’re learning about balance, about the vestibular system, about their relationship to the planet and gravity: when children are playing, they are making new connections, and they [need to] use all their senses to do that. With traditional education, just sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture and looking at a book or a smartboard, that doesn’t make very strong connections [in the brain].

LG: [The navigation lesson] was about place. Where am I in this place? Understanding how big places are or how big the planet is––that’s hard to wrap your mind around when you’re 6! It’s hard to understand how far away things are, or how close they are. I always ask kids to draw a map of their own neighborhood—it’s about awareness, observation.

BR: For example, our class was learning about animal habitats in school and Leslie suggested, “Let’s do  [that lesson] at the Garden!” We started in the classroom reading stories about animal homes and we talked about which kinds of animals might live in burrows. Then here at the Garden, one of the students, Sam, actually found a burrow by a tree!

LG: And then we started using our observation skills and asking more questions. We were noticing the aerial burrows, like in a tree where the squirrels or woodpeckers live, and the kids were the ones asking, “What lives in here? What are they doing? Where do they get their food?” and continuing on. And making all these connections and having these varied experiences—it all goes back to language acquisition!

BR: And just building more connections in the brain. If you think of a fireworks show on the Fourth of July, at the beginning you have little fireworks, and that’s a student who might not have had many experiences in their life. But the finale, [with lots of different fireworks], that’s a student who has been read to, who has [visited different places], who has touched things, who smells things, who tastes things.

LG: It’s about brain development, it’s about language acquisition, and it’s simply about richness of life. The more we experience, the richer our lives are, especially when we’re learning with all of our senses. [And kids] learn so much through movement. That’s what they’re learning from running around in circles! Being alive in a physical world is very complicated—why shouldn’t we be exposing kids to how complicated and fabulous it is? It’s one of the reasons I love teaching decomposition—because there is a cycle: “These dead plants are breaking down—where are they going to go? Where are they going into the soil?”

BR: There’s nothing that a child cannot learn if we break it down for them.

What are you excited about this year for your classroom?

LG: For the past two years, I’ve been trying to think of ways to talk more explicitly about the climate crisis. And I did it this summer with one of my lessons, where we design our own version of the city [and] I will introduce new variables for kids to design their cities around. I’m very excited to design that lesson and test it with the Patterson children.

BR: I want to do that! For my classroom, not only will the students be visiting the Garden regularly, but we are also taking field trips throughout the city to different places to get them out of the classroom: the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Franklin Institute, Lankenau [Hospital Education Center], the Swedish Museum, the aquarium—just trying to expose them to as much as possible to help reinforce what they’re learning inside of the classroom and taking it outside to apply it and make connections. Experiences and connections—those are my two words!

How did you two first get connected?

LG: Karen McKenzie and Tammy Cantagallo were the first two teachers I really got to know from Patterson, [then I met Beverly through field trips.] I love Beverly’s classroom style. Every once in a while I meet a teacher who makes me think, “Oh I should have stayed in the classroom”—she’s one of them. We started talking, and she said she wanted [to create] the outdoor education experience that her kids had.

BR: Yes, my boys went to the Philadelphia School, and they had a program where they went to the Schuylkill Center bi-weekly. I want to give props to the Philadelphia School because they gave my sons an excellent education, and I want my students to have those same experiences so that they can compete in the future.

Can I give props to a couple more people? Principal Hagan: she is a new principal to our school––last year was her first year––and she’s very supportive of this program. I want to say what an excellent job she’s doing: she has a heart for the students and for the community, and she’s extremely supportive of her teachers.

LG: And she loves this connection; she loves getting the kids outdoors. She is 100%.

BR: She’s incredible and she has so many ideas and new activities that she’s implemented at Patterson. We really are moving on and advancing with our school in a more positive direction. Also Mr. Steczak—he is our science teacher, and he is incredible. Whatever question anybody has about science, he will create an entire lesson. Once, we were learning about the Hoover Dam, the students said, “Oh, beavers build dams!” And I was talking to Mr. S about it, and he said, “Let’s make a dam!” So the students collected sticks, leaves, and small rocks, and Mr. S made a mud concoction and got paint trays, and the students worked with partners to build a dam across the width of the paint tray. Then we let it dry and put water on one side and we had to see which dams were able to hold water, or not. I’m learning to be like him!

What inspired you to become an educator?

BR: When I was about 11 or 12, I fell in love with this movie called Bustin’ Loose––it’s based in Philadelphia, starring Richard Pryor and Cicely Tyson. I knew when I saw it that I wanted to work with children in an urban environment. I was a social worker for a short time and I was also a TSS, a therapeutic staff support worker, but I decided that early childhood education is really what I love. First grade is where I’m meant to be [because of] that literacy component—I love seeing the students come in knowing letters and letter sounds but leaving reading paragraphs. I love to see that transition—that’s what inspires me to stay in first grade.

LG: I did not want to be a teacher. I’m the second person in my family to go to college: the first person was my uncle, who became a teacher! There were not a lot of options, and I really resisted even though everyone said, “You should be a teacher.” I did all kinds of other stuff, and when I was 39, my father died, and I sort of felt like, “What am I doing with my life?” I wound up going to grad school and being a classroom teacher, and feeling very dissatisfied with it. And I guess because my father had died, I got very interested in the kind of experiences I’d had with him, which were all outside. That’s where he and I connected, and I connected to my grandmother that way, through gardening and animals, and I realized I wanted to communicate that to kids.

I say to all the kids, “The Schuylkill River is your birthright! Clean air should also be your birth right, [Bartram’s Garden] is your birthright.” I’m hoping that kids get a little bit inspired—if you live on a block like mine, where there’s very little nature, what can you do to increase it? Or if you do live on a block where there are trees, how can we encourage that and appreciate it?

BR: I was just realizing how similar your childhood was to my childhood. My parents were from Philadelphia and when they got married, they didn’t want to raise me and my brother in Philly, so we moved up to New England. I was born in Massachusetts, and we lived there ‘til I was 4, then we moved to Concord, New Hampshire, and lived there ‘til I was 8. I was always a daddy’s girl, and he would take us canoeing and fishing and camping, and we always had a garden, either in our yard or in a plot of land that we rented—always doing something, always exposing us to new and different things. I want my students to experience that as much as possible.

I remember in Concord, New Hampshire, my first-grade teacher lived on a dairy farm and she took us to visit her farm. We were not only able to milk the cows, but we made homemade butter and baked rolls. At school, I remember sometimes, after a rain, she would take trash bags, rip them open, put them on us [like ponchos], and take us for nature walks. At recess, our playground was full of pine trees, and we would take the pine needles and build forts. I also remember a field trip to a nature center: at the center there was a creek. While walking along the creek, we noticed a beaver lodge. Memories like that I will always cherish, and I just want that for my students.

What’s your favorite fall memory in the Garden?

BR: I love when Leslie does lessons outside in the Garden: she’ll pull the easel out and the kids will sit on the mats, it’s a nice cool day and we’re just out in nature and experiencing nature together. I really enjoy going for the Color Walk: Leslie will give the kids paint chips and the kids have to find things in nature that correspond to the colors. When students see that maybe there’s a leaf that’s dying and it’s one or two shades darker, they can start classifying that.

LG: It gives them a focus—instead of seeing just a sea of green, they can start seeing different shades and noticing differences. If we’re talking about biodiversity, this variety matters—it’s not just about richness of experience but it matters for the pollinators, for the birds; it matters to the whole system. I want kids to start being able to appreciate that.

I have two favorite memories! One is rolling down a hill with this lady and her first-graders—she started it, not her students. It’s one of the reasons why I love her. Rolling down that tiny slope, we were going really fast! The other is from my first year here, teaching a first- or second-grade class from a Southwest school. It was November and it was a hard fall, so we were standing in the garden, and we could look down to the river because the trees were bare. And this little girl said, “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” That wide-eyed appreciation for that beauty was all her and that has stuck with me.

John M. Patterson School is a Philadelphia public school educating children in grades Pre-K–4, located at 7000 Buist Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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One group at a time walked across the meadow to the Bike Hub where all of the youth were able to find a bike just their size and traverse the traffic garden set up along the main path.  Bike Hub Manager, Jack, created a course with chalk and cones with both a beginner path and a more experienced path with a lava zone where youth had to stay on a very small area to avoid the lava. The youth were excited to get on bikes and loop around the course, having fun and growing their bike handling skills.

We wrapped up in the Air Conditioned Barn with snacks and a quick debrief and invitation for all of the young people to tell their family and friends to come back to the Bartram’s Bike Hub anytime we are open on Friday’s 3-6pm and Saturdays 10-2 through the fall!

You, too, can experience the joy of biking at Bartram’s Garden.
Join us at the Bike Hub every Friday 3-6pm and Saturdays 10am-2pm.
The Bike Hub offers a rotating list of classes and rides including:

• Free Bike Rentals to use at the gardens
• Learn to Ride Classes for Kids and Adults
• Beginner Bike Rides of the Bartram Mile
• Bike Maps and Info about Bike Safety Materials in English, Spanish, Simple Chinese, Russian, Haitian Creole  & Vietnamese

More info about classes and rides as well as registration are available on the Bartram’s Garden online calendar.

#Shoutout to Rec Leaders, Ms. Lisa and Ms. Kecia for coordinating the day, and Bartram’s Garden staff for supporting the planning, coordinating and ensuring we had plenty of cold water!

This post originally appeared at https://bicyclecoalition.org/bartrams-garden-bike-hub-hosts-a-summer-camp/

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As part of our efforts to offer free river activities like boating and fishing, Valerie, Ammarava, and the rest of the river program team carefully monitor the water quality in the Tidal Schuylkill River to ensure that river conditions are safe for recreation. Our data about bacterial and nutrient levels in the river, combined with records about recent rainfall, helps inform our safety practices for public recreation like boating. We also share our findings to advocate for improved protections of the river’s health and water quality.

And though the Schuylkill River’s health has improved dramatically in recent decades, unfortunately, our team still regularly cancels recreational programs owing to unsafe conditions caused by overflows of the city’s combined sewer system, which can introduce sewage and other pollutants into the river after significant rainfall or because of wastewater coming from suburban or industrial origins. Speaking alongside experts from PennEnvironment and regional elected officials, Valerie and Ammarava shared the impact these overflows can have on our free river recreation programs as well as how we use our water quality monitoring to keep visitors and staff safe. Read more in coverage from KYW News Radio and the Philadelphia Inquirer, or check out our data yourself to learn more about the health of the river.

Above: Ammarava sharing details of how the Garden’s water quality monitoring programs keep visitors and staff safe during river recreation on the Tidal Schuylkill River. Photo courtesy Alexandra Venth.

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