Education – Page 4

Step Back in Time with Owen McGoldrick

May 24, 2022 By CommIntern

All photos are currently on display and for sale in the Rushton Conservation Center, May 17 – August 28.

INTRODUCTION BY OWEN MCGOLDRICK

The color photographs were made using a 4×5” Linhof view camera. Notch and clip marks are shown to emphasize a bygone era, which involved carrying a heavy view camera and tripod, loaded with Kodak or Fuji film, and taking a picture somewhere on the grounds of what is now part of the Kirkwood Preserve, or in the very accommodating and voluminous interior of our mid-19th century farmhouse and barn.

Dr. S.H. overlooks Grubbs Mill and Goshen Roads

“Silo Cap” was one of the very first photos shot with a 35mm Pentax for a beginning photography class at the Columbus College of Art, Ohio. Our family lived in the lower house of Massey Farm (always referred to as White Horse Farm by our clan) from 1963 to 1990. The photographs in this exhibit depict the house, barn and fields that surrounded the fence line.

The landowner, Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupé, lived in the mansion at the top of the hill. He was an Austrian immigrant with Old World ways, a plume of cigarette smoke and cravat. He served as a statesman, professor at Penn and a term as the US ambassador to NATO, as well as Turkey, Sweden and Sri Lanka. Dr. S. H. could be stern, especially when it came to our lawn mowing abilities, or lack thereof; however, he was also generous, allowing us to use his glamorous swimming pool every summer day from 5 to 6 pm. What a relief it was to jump into that cool water on a hot, muggy summer afternoon. The pool was surrounded on three sides by apple trees which offered useful content for two of the pictures in this exhibit, not to mention homemade applesauce.

Here’s a tidbit. Mrs. Strausz-Hupé once called my mother and asked frantically if we had a car to pick up Dr. S. H. and a military general at the Philadelphia airport. Being the only resource available, off I went to pick up the good doctor and General Alexander Haig in the family VW. As a longhaired 16 year old with limited driving experience, it was a bit soon to be chauffeuring major political figures of national importance. After I dropped them off, mom asked me what they talked about. I replied, “Mostly themselves.”

Tidbit #2. Dr. Strausz-Hupé had an aesthetic streak. He was the first person to turn me on to the 18^th century British artist and poet, William Blake. There we sat in his study with little hippie me looking at color plates of this visionary artist. Blake is still one of my favorite historical figures, and not only visually, but the whole daring philosophy of his creative universe is something to behold.

Growing up on a farm with a big barn to play in, acres of fields and woods to explore, and Crum Creek to swim and fish in, was more than a fair deal for any childhood. How remarkable it is that those fields and creek are today’s Kirkwood Preserve! Deep appreciation and a little awe goes to Bonnie Van Alen, Kate Etherington, Willistown Conservation Trust and the active group of local citizens for taking action and saving the day.

The select group of images were recently scanned and retouched in Lightroom and Photoshop and printed within the last two months on Epson Premium inkjet and Kodak professional paper. This is known as “straight photography,” where all effects happened on site and outside the camera, without machinations in Photoshop to create the visual results. The transparencies came out of a 40-year hibernation in carefully stored boxes through many a move, and now my old friends have returned.

GALLERY DESCRIPTIONS

All gallery photos are on display and for sale at the Rushton Conservation Center, May 17 – August 28.

1. The Barn is a Camera | A window shines a sunbeam inside the west storage room, or hay mow.

cam·er·a ob·scu·ra : a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object onto a screen inside. ORIGIN early 18th century: from Latin, ‘dark chamber.’

2. Silo Cap | One of the earliest photos from the first year of photography at the Columbus College of Art and Design. I wished I’d thoroughly documented the silo since we have so few photos of it. It was demolished later that year in 1977, after being deemed an unsafe structure.

3. Inside Looking Up | Inside the silo looking up at the deteriorating rooftop. A worker would have stood on those steps and lifted the sileage from the outside on an “elevator,” which was actually no more than an iron bucket. Dangerous work.

4. Black and Light | The result of a photography assignment using Dektol as a developer for B&W film. Or was it M-D3? It gives a grainy, high contrast look to the print. I took two negatives and sandwiched them. The barn’s a camera, a playground, a studio, a subject, an object.

5. Northwest Side | I took this snapshot in the mid-1990’s. Those doors are usually called “X-braced” and lead into the upper threshing room. The double decker barn traces back to English antecedents. A recent shot of one of the storage rooms is shown below.

6. The Exemplar | I remember floating by that oak tree in a great flood in June, 1968. There was a continuous wave at the bottom of Barr road.
Crum Creek was flowing to the right of this tree at about a 5-foot depth, a moving lake 10 times its normal size. That’s when I went for a swim and my friend Tom thought I was drowning so he made Boy Scout signals on the edge of the field. You can still see the high water mark from that storm event, put there by the township on telephone poles.

7. Pennsylvania Landscape | “Tootsie Roll” bales somewhere on Davis Road looking south. Archetypical Pennsylvania farmland nostalgia. For some reason, I think of the Civil War when I look at this print.

8. Cow Palette | Living amongst the Holsteins brought up mischievous thoughts of the black and white tonal scale in photography. But I didn’t expect the cow to be waiting for me on top of the hill. Hello Ansel Adams Zone System. That’s Crum Creek in the far ridgeline.

9. Speed of Light | From the third floor west bedroom looking into Wyeth country.

10. A Single Excellent Night | The title comes from the name of an ancient Buddhist text. That’s a 35mm slide projected from a Kodak projector of a TV still shot (was it a Magritte documentary?) into the far room. I painted the walls yellow and asked a friend to pose with an umbrella. She put on my bowler hat. I wish I still had that bowler hat.

11. Flag Composition | Still life arrangement courtesy of the Strausz-Hupé apple grove. The antique dress was courtesy of mom’s shop in Berwyn. It was a lot of work to get those apples into our enclosed yard in cosmic order. The flag was a family heirloom from family ancestor and WWI flying ace, George Evans. One time I showed the photograph to the father of a very good friend who exclaimed, shocked and angry, “But that’s desecrating the flag!” (The flag should never touch the ground, let alone decaying apples.) You can’t predict some people’s reactions. But I got his point.

12. Thornley Bush III | I found this natural oddity and stuck it between barbed wire and a fence rail just outside of the mudroom. One time the field behind caught fire from an unmonitored rubbish burn and the fire department had to be called out to douse the flames. The next year the field grass grew back very, very green and healthy. Sometimes calamity brings an improvement.

13. Still Life with Moonrise | A Kodak projector beams a slide of the moon in the third floor bathroom. I was big into projecting slides into interiors and exteriors, and then photographing the on-the-site collage with a view camera. That’s called analog. Ya dig?

14. Three Tree Hill | A saddle sloped hill that was great for tobogganing. Brought to you by billions of years of tertiary history and a 4×5 view camera. Somewhere near those trees I remember there was a salt block for cows. After some research, sodium in the salt helps with the absorption of calcium and helps to avoid “grass tetany.” I tried licking that maroon colored block once as a kid and never did get grass tetany after that.

15. Priest at Crum Creek

Crum Creek. I wonder what the Lenni-Lenapes called it?

This is a shot of Father Dinda launching a toy boat. He was a real fun character who used to come into my mother’s antique shop in Berwyn. Mom would always have some interesting items in the shop and that’s how I came to borrow the boat. I love Father Dinda’s self-satisfied grin – a man of the cloth comfortable in his…cloth. How I got him on that rock I’ll never know.

We used to go swimming in one spot called the Sheep hole, where the creek was six feet deep. There was a rope swing on a pine tree, and swing we did into beautiful Crum Creek. I would get a stick and put a piece of bacon on a hook and fish from a large rock. In those summer days in the 60’s, I’d often see rainbow trout, which was always tantalizing because not once did I ever catch a trout with bacon. They don’t go for worms either. I’d inevitably catch a sunfish. This was Huck Finn style fishin’. One time I took my catch home and put him in our aquarium. We called him/ her, Sunny, he/she lasted all summer.

Right across from the big rock where I always sat, there was, and thankfully still is, a magnificent oak tree. Around the time I took Father Dinda’s picture, I set up the view camera in front of a tree in all its autumnal glory, The Exemplar.

16. Portrait of Father Dinda

17. White Horse Farm, 1900 | The house on the hill is the mansion where the Strausz-Hupé family lived.

From the Chester County Historical Society Archives.

18. The Lion in Winter | The home had a great fireplace. An excellent home for the holidays.

19. Beatle John | My brother John Pancoast posing in front of the apple cosmos in Alfie’s yard. It could have been a great album cover. John used to go to parties and tell everyone he was George Thorogood’s brother. It worked.

20. First Polaroid: Forebay | A copy of the very first Polaroid trying out a new view camera in 1981. Perspective issues!

Connecting Students to Bird Conservation

November 17, 2021 By Blake Goll

By Caitlin Welsh

The bird banding net lanes at Rushton Farm. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff

Since I was introduced to Willistown Conservation Trust in 2015, it has been a privilege to spend many of my working hours in the field supporting the bird banding program at Rushton. The time spent walking the net lanes and watching the seasons change over the last two years in particular has made it much easier to stay grounded during a time when it was often easy to find oneself feeling adrift.

As an educator who primarily engages the public in natural settings, it was especially challenging to connect with our audiences, particularly K-12 teachers and students. However, if there’s one lesson to be learned from the challenges presented by the pandemic, it’s the importance of meeting and engaging with others where they’re at, which is an intrinsic part of good educators’ practice.

I had the fortune to connect with a group of such educators who dedicated time during the pandemic to exploring ways we could help them and their students connect with the natural world. AIM Academy is a K-12 research-to-practice school in Conshohocken, PA that strives to support students who learn differently, often by using project-based learning strategies and emphasizing 21^st century skills. With students returning to the classroom, Alicia DeVane, Julia Bower, and Cherica Onyango – AIM Academy’s 8^th grade science team – were eager to find ways to immerse students in social emotional learning through science education.

*Ken Leister, County Coordinator for Bluebird Society of PA, and educator Caitlin Welsh at AIM Academy for the bird box building project.*

We focused on introducing students to migration ecology with an emphasis on bird-human interactions to help students foster personal connections to local wildlife. Over the course of two weeks, students completed a learning module in which they were able to engage with educators both virtually and in the classroom through presentations, birding on AIM’s campus, and migration mapping activities from Birds Canada that use Motus wildlife tracking data.

The experience culminated in a project that guided students to creatively promote human behaviors that can support bird conservation, like designing and installing decals to reduce window strikes around the school building, and recording PSAs about preventing interactions between birds and domestic cats. Activities and other learning resources, as well as an overview of this and other experiences, can be explored in the Educational Opportunities section of the Northeast Motus Collaboration’s web page.

Seeing the ease with which students could activate their empathy through creative pursuits, we were then connected with Kathy Brandon who leads AIM’s Middle School STEAM program where students incorporate art and design principles into STEM disciplines. With the 2021 school year and field season in full swing, Blake Goll, the Trust’s Education Manager, and I took a break from the banding station to work with Kathy’s students and spread the message of bird conservation even farther than the AIM community.

After learning about the Trust’s bird banding program and our work to address the challenges faced by migratory birds due to habitat loss, students had the opportunity to build nest boxes for Eastern bluebirds with guidance from the Trust’s bluebird champion, Ken Leister.

After building the nest boxes, Kathy plans to mobilize her program and connect with community partners at St. James School, a tuition-free school for underserved student populations in North Philadelphia. Following the AIM’s mission to seek equity and access for all to STEAM Education, Kathy will use AIM’s Mobile STEAM Lab to share cross-curricular learning experiences like the nest box project with St. James Schools’ students and community. “I really appreciate our collaboration,” Kathy said. “Maybe one bird box at a time we can make a difference for our environment”.

Ken Leister and Caitlin Welsh facilitating bird box building with AIM Academy students.

Flooding 101

August 23, 2021 By Anna Willig

As we approach the last few weeks of summer heat and humidity, we approach peak seasons for thunderstorms and flooding. Last Thursday, heavy rainfalls led to the first major flood of the year in our area. At Ashbridge Preserve, Ridley Creek rose over 2 meters (7 feet) in about 3 hours, pouring out of its banks. In the wake of these floods, we wanted to take the opportunity to answer some commonly asked questions about the fundamentals of flooding.

What is a flood?

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) defines a flood as “any relatively high streamflow overtopping the natural or artificial banks in any reach of a stream” (USGS, 2019). In other words, a flood happens when a stream breaches its banks, resulting in water flowing over areas that are not normally part of the stream. Floods can occur for a number of reasons, from snow melt to rain to changes in tides. In our area, the most common cause of flooding is rain, often from summer storms, and snow melt after large snowfalls.

Ridley Creek before (left) and during (left) a flood at Ashbridge Preserve in 2018. Photos by author.

How frequently do floods occur?

Floods can occur several times a year, whenever rain or snowmelt causes a stream to overflow its banks. Small floods, when the stream barely breaches its banks, are more common than large floods when the water pours out of its banks.

The size of a flood is determined by the peak flow of a stream or the greatest amount of water moving through the stream during a flood event. Peak flow can be determined by measuring the height of a stream; it is the highest height during the flood event. Higher peak flows indicate larger floods and lower peak flows indicate smaller floods.

This graph shows water depth over time and nine floods that happened at Ashbridge Preserve in the Summer of 2018. The blue line represents the depth at which the stream completely fills its bank–a flood occurs any time the water rises above this depth. Each spike represents a rainstorm and the peak flow, which determines the size of a flood, is the highest depth in each storm. The star represents the peak flow of the flood that is pictured above.

Floods are classified by how often we expect them to occur. A 100-year flood is a flood of a given size that has a 1% chance of occurring each year. Similarly, a 500-year flood has a 0.2% chance of occurring each year and a 1000-year flood has a 0.1% chance of occurring each year. However, this does not mean that a 100-year flood will only occur once every 100 years or that a 1000-year flood will occur once every 1000 years. It simply refers to the likelihood of such a flood happening each year.

How do you stay safe during a flood?

Floods in our area can be dangerous, even life-threatening. According to a recently completed Hazard Risk Assessment by Chester County, flooding is the second highest risk hazard in the county. Floods can damage property, destroy roads and bridges, and threaten human lives.

Floodwaters are most dangerous for drivers, especially when drivers try to cross flooded roads. Twelve inches of flowing water will move a car, and 2 feet of water will easily sweep a car away. Even just a few inches of water can immobilize a car, stranding drivers in the middle of a road. If you are driving during a rainstorm, do not drive through any floodwater. Floodwater is often dark and murky, making it difficult to judge how much water is actually on the road and if the water is flowing. Turn around and find another route or pull over and wait until the water goes down.

Want to learn more about flooding?

Stay tuned next week for Flooding 102, which takes a deeper dive into how land use decisions impact flooding in our area. Until then, check out some of these resources:

Monitor streams in Pennsylvania for real-time flooding: Streamflow conditions
Check out real-time stream monitoring data in Ridley and Crum Creeks near Willistown: EnviroDIY Sensor Stations
Learn more about flood risk and historical flooding in Chester County: Risk Assessment – Flood, Flash Flood, Ice Jam
Learn more about how to stay safe during a flood: Turn Around Don’t Drown

USGS. (2019). Floods and Recurrence Intervals: Overview [Techniques and Methods]. USGS.
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/floods-and-recurrence-intervals?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

Shining a Light on a Different Type of Stream Pollution

August 11, 2021 By Zack Smith

Lights are everywhere around us and have many uses, often at night, that benefit our health and safety. We put lights on our cars, buildings, and roads, often neglecting to understand their full effect beyond their positive impact on human life. While lights may make us feel more comfortable in our surroundings, they have been known to negatively impact other species in our environment through the process of light pollution.

Light pollution occurs when the excessive use of light creates an overwhelming glow in the night sky that brightens the natural environment, often exceeding even the bright glow of a full moon. This form of pollution is all encompassing, as 83% of the world population lives in an area that experiences light pollution. In the USA and Europe, 99% of the population lives under a polluted night sky. If you are interested in seeing what light pollution looks like in your hometown, check out this website.

_{This image from https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/ shows the potential pollution caused by lights in residential areas. All lights are used to light a specified area, but as seen in the image above, more areas outside of the area to be lit also experience glare.}

Researchers have observed nocturnal animals that rely on dark skies and lunar cycles will change their activity levels in areas with more light pollution. Animal behavior has adapted to natural conditions over millions of years, and when we suddenly put in millions of lights, we are changing the environment species need to thrive. Perhaps the most common example of this is the case of the sea turtle. Hatching sea turtles rely heavily on the moon to find the ocean shortly after emerging. In highly polluted areas, the lights from the land often mimic or overpower the moon and deceive the babies, leading them towards land where they are bound to get hit by cars, eaten by predators, or starve to death (Longcore & Rich, 2004).

Locally, different species feel the burden of light pollution. Studies on streams across the USA have shown that light pollution near streams can change the makeup of insect populations in and around streams. Streamside studies where artificial light pollution was introduced demonstrated that important spiders often living in riparian zones decreased in abundance, as did the diversity of aquatic insects, by as much as 16%. Light pollution near streams also led to a decrease in size in emerging insects by approximately 76% (Meyer & Sullivan, 2013).

Changing conditions in streams can have a large ripple effect outside of the water, too. With individuals disappearing and shrinking in size, predators, like fish and birds, may have to consume larger quantities of smaller insects to meet their energy needs. Consuming more small insects can strain predators as they use additional energy to look for larger numbers of smaller prey. Less optimal food for these species can lead to decreased survival, further contorting the food web.

In addition to changes within the stream corridor, light pollution brings many pressures to terrestrial insect communities. Bright lights are known to attract flying insects outside of streams – think of your porch light and all the insects that fly near it at night. This attracts more predators, such as bats, that feed on vulnerable species of insects near these lights. While some predators suffer because of light pollution, species like bats can benefit based on different behaviors in different areas.

_{The map above shows the light pollution levels in Southeast PA. Philadelphia, a major city center, has incredibly high levels of light. Locally, West Chester, Marple, and Media all exert high levels of light pollution, as compared with the Trust’s program area, which experiences lower levels of light pollution thanks to lower development levels. These lower light levels can be attributed to protected lands.}

While avoiding light pollution is incredibly unlikely, there are solutions and actions we can take to minimize its effect on wildlife globally. At home, turning off bright outdoor lights or getting an automatic light can decrease light output. When choosing lights, picking lights that effectively target an area to be lit is important, as ineffective lights can cast a glow beyond the anticipated area and pollute more space than necessary. Within our communities, we can advocate for darker nights by telling our towns and cities to turn off unnecessary public lighting on buildings and in public spaces, much like Philadelphia did this last spring. As for protecting our waterways, planting and maintaining a healthy riparian buffer can go a long way in shielding waters from harmful light pollution. Thick plant growth will block incoming light and help keep our streams at lower light levels, ensuring aquatic insects, fish, and other riparian organisms can thrive.

Citations:

Light pollution effects on wildlife and ecosystems. International Dark-Sky Association. (2016, September 12). https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/wildlife/.

Longcore, T., & Rich, C. (2004). Ecological light pollution. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2(4), 191-198.

Meyer, L. A., & Sullivan, S. M. P. (2013). Bright lights, big city: influences of ecological light pollution on reciprocal stream–riparian invertebrate fluxes. Ecological applications, 23(6), 1322-1330.

Header Image Eco Watch

Willistown Conservation Trust Welcomes 12 Student Interns This Season

April 2, 2021 By Communications Team

Internships are an integral part of Willistown Conservation Trust’s (WCT) work. Each year hardworking students join our team and bring with them a wealth of experience and enthusiasm. They provide essential duties during our busy seasons working on the farm, banding birds, maintaining trails, planting trees, taking water samples, mapping, interacting with volunteers, teaching our young Rushton Nature Keepers, and more. Further, their innovative projects add to the growing body of knowledge the Trust works to compile about our protected spaces. It’s our hope that these interns leave the Trust with a greater understanding of land preservation and the stewardship practices that lead to healthy ecosystems for people, wildlife, and the land itself. These students represent the future of the conservation movement, and we are proud to play a role in educating and inspiring these future leaders!

STEWARDSHIP

WATERSHED

These positions are generously funded by the William Penn Foundation.

BIRD CONSERVATION & NORTHEAST MOTUS COLLABORATION

RUSHTON FARM

	Gloria Avila, Drexel University Gloria (she/her) is a third year Environmental Science student at Drexel University. As a first generation Ecuadorian and the first person in her family to attend university, she is especially passionate about community outreach in the form of fostering an early love for science in children. Gloria hopes to one day have a career that can combine her love for field research and public engagement in a fulfilling way.
	Catherine Quinn, Drexel University Catherine (she/her) is in her pre-junior year at Drexel. She is majoring in environmental science with a minor in global studies, and her academic and career interests mainly include aquatic ecosystems, climate change, and environmental and climate justice. She is also really into civic engagement, and volunteers with Drexel’s Climate & Sustainability Working Group! In her free time, she loves crocheting, reading, yoga, traveling (when there isn’t a pandemic), and doing anything where she can be outside. Catherine is splitting time between the Trust’s Watershed Protection Program and the Academy of Natural Science’s Nutrient Lab!
	Zack Smith, Drexel University Zack (he/him) is a 4th year junior at Drexel University studying Environmental Science. In the past, he has had experience working with Dr. Dane Ward in Cuba studying Melipona beecheii honeybees. In addition to this, he has previously co-oped with the Philadelphia Water Department and most recently the watershed team at Willistown Conservation Trust. He is excited to be returning to build on his experience from last year. When not in class or working, you can find Zack going on long distance bike rides, brewing too much coffee & reading, or connecting with friends (while remaining socially distant of course!).
	Anna Willig, Middlebury College Anna (she/her) grew up outside of Phoenixville and spent much of her childhood exploring the fields and forests around her home. She pursued her interest in the environment at Middlebury College, where she graduated with a degree in Conservation Biology in 2020. Having worked as a summer intern for the Watershed Protection Program in 2018, Anna is excited to return to WCT and continue studying and protecting local lands and waters.

	Noa Dijstelbloem, Strath Haven High School Noa (she/her) is a senior at Strath Haven High School who after visiting Rushton Farm with her AP science program became a dedicated volunteer and will be an official intern for the 2021 season. She will be attending Cornell University as an agriculture major this fall.
	Amanda Dunbar, University of Pennsylvania Amanda (she/her) joins the trust with over 10 years of experience in various aspects of conservation work including research and public policy. She has a degree in wildlife conservation from the University of Delaware and a Master’s of Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. It was while she was working towards her master’s in 2014 that she began volunteering at the Rushton bird banding station for migration, MAPS, and Project Owlnet. She is excited to join the Rushton Farm Staff as Agroecology Project Coordinator where part of her work will focus on the connections between organic agriculture and the birds visiting Rushton.
	Heather Kostick, Drexel University Heather (she/her) has a BS in Wildlife Conservation and a MES from the University of Pennsylvania in Ecology & Resource Management. Heather conducted bioblitzes from 2015-2017 at Rushton Woods, and hopes to have those return to Rushton when it’s safe to do so. She is currently a doctoral graduate student and teaching assistant at Drexel University, and works at the farm in her spare time. Heather’s interest in agriculture and farming started with Delaware County 4-H where she raised chickens, turkeys, and pigs. One of Heather’s turkeys even got a blue ribbon at the PA Farm Show one year. She also attended the PA Governor’s School Agricultural Sciences Program at Penn State in 2007 where she learned even more about agriculture, environmental science, and food science. Heather has been volunteering at the Trust since 2012 first starting at the bird banding station and has been volunteering at the Trust in some capacity since then. Heather loves being at Rushton Farm and looks forward to working the land with the Rushton Farm staff this year.
	Madison Lin, Strath Haven High School Madison (she/her) is a senior at Strath Haven High School who is working with Rushton Farm as part of our educational programming with the AP environmental science class at Strath Haven. Madison will continue her education this summer as a full time intern. She will be attending Colby College as an environmental science major this fall.
	Abby Oswald, Great Valley High School Abby (she/her) is a senior at Great Valley High School and will be graduating in June 2021. In 2020, Abby became the youngest full-time intern at Rushton Farm in its 13-year history. Abby joins Rushton Farm this season as a seasoned intern with a passion for agriculture. Abby plans to pursue a career in agriculture and will be attending college to study agroecology.