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Why re-use the Mill as an environmental center?
Monocacy Nature Center, a 20-acre site contiguous to the mill, is located in a densely populated area, and is heavily utilized by local citizens. Stream bank conditions and water quality are highly threatened;
As an environmental center in a city, the Mill's programming will acquaint our citizens with the beauty of nature, and will foster an appreciation for environmental issues and action;
The Mill is a beautiful structure currently under restoration; Our architectural plan models an environmentally-friendly approach to development, and will improve an historic structure in an especially popular park;
The Monocacy Creek is significantly understudied, and local students from neighboring schools, colleges, and universities must currently travel out of our area to do hands-on environmental study.
Education and environmental activities at Illick's Mill will have an infinite impact on our community in the years to come.
Updated Goals and Objectives of The Fox Environmental Center @ Illick's Mill:
Goals:
1) Implement a teaching strategy focused on preparing separate teams of fourth grade and seventh grade students to feel comfortable, safe, and prepared for outdoor learning, and then engage them in vigorous, environmentally significant, and fun action.
a) Our curriculum for the visiting fourth and seventh grade students is inspired by measurable trends forecasting a growing loss of time spent by children in nature and the resulting negative impacts. (Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv) Our curriculum will align with our local school district and state in terms of environmental standards, but will also target the need for students from the varied backgrounds that comprise our watershed to feel comfortable and safe in natural environments. We will pre-evaluate visitor students to determine who will need to start off more slowly, exploring the park before the refuge, working to overcome resistance to the woods, natural water, and/or nature’s creeping and crawling critters.
b) The classroom center space, the first place visitor students will gather each day, has been restored to instill a calming and inviting effect on young students, with warm colors on dry wall, whitewash on the restored plaster, floorboard heating in the winter to encourage long, relaxing study, naturally cooled air on warm days (Our air transfer unit carries the cool air from our grade-level – atop the aquifer at a cool 56 degrees Farenheit year-round -- throughout the Mill), and, on sunny days, sunlight streams through the 18 windows and two glass doors that illuminate the room. Our classroom-outfitting plan is leading to outdoor exploration and learning through needed environmental action. Our use of satellite imaging to orient student visitors in relation to their school and other local landmarks is designed to increase student comfort as well as increase their knowledge of local geography, and when we virtually explore the nature preserve and compare it to the park, visitor students will not only preview the environmental elements and issues they will see in person, an accepted teaching strategy to increase retention (“Microteaching as a Proven Methodology, ”“Methods and Teacher Behavior,” Walter Kallenbech, presented at Stanford University, November 21-22, 1966) they will be more comfortable when they are inhabiting, and interacting in, that natural environment.
c) Measurable trends in childhood obesity and overall childhood health been linked to decreased time in nature, (“Biophilia,” Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University Press) a trend we intend to reverse in our community by the fun and vigorous activities visitor students will experience at FAM. The Mill, park, and nature preserve are surrounded on three sides by dense neighborhoods with large populations of low-income families. A large 2007 survey of low-income children found that almost 15% of surveyed children were obese, equal to or greater than the 95th percentile for BMI as compared with 12.4% of U.S children overall. (“F as in Fat: how obesity policies are failing in America,” Vinter Levi, L. Richardson, R. St.Laurent, & L. Segal, Trust for America's Health) Classes within walking distance will be met at their schools by FAM students and walked to the Mill. After orienting themselves to their surroundings in the classroom center, most of their three-day experience will be spent learning by doing environmental work to monitor, protect, and improve the watershed: water and macroinvertebrate testing, native plant gardening, bird identification and migration tracking, invasive species removal, native species plantings, etc. followed by unstructured time in nature, a key component of emotional health. (“Exploring the links between mind, nature, health,” Lisa Kocian, Boston Globe)
2) The converted Mill will be attractive, nature-friendly, and environmentally instructive throughout, featuring the structure’s own intrinsic natural elements and FAM’s energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and innovative architectural improvements.
a) The Mill’s current condition engenders positive energy: newly finished oak floors heated in winter with a floorboard system, white plaster walls with no two angles the same, and prized Monocacy Creek, visible through large glass doors, flowing only 30 yards from the building. With lots of big windows and Southern exposure, the Mill itself will attract its visitors; with myriad examples of old and new, green technology and energy efficiency, it’s features, and associated “how to” literature, will inspire visitors to live sustainably.
b) Upon entrance to the mill, the visitor students will study two of our three murals located throughout the mill. This first mural they will see is painted on the support beams and columns of the first floor. Each column is painted to accurately depict a native tree species that can be found in the adjacent 24-acre Monocacy Nature Preserve; the six columns share a canopy across the beams, and all trees are “inhabited” by native birds and “planted” in native grass and ground cover. A second mural, “The Life Cycle of a Leopard Frog” is painted in the semi-circular plaster remains of the original Millrace. The students ascend the stairs to the classroom center and see the center section of our Geo- Mural painted on boards made from recycled agricultural waste (WheatBoard) that also serve as safety barriers required to meet code. The Geo-Mural, which is 25% complete, depicts what will be outside, at that elevation, when Monocacy Park is environmentally restored: From the swirling aquifer to a streambank planted with native shrubs to a pair of fly fisherman and a Great Blue Heron seeking food to kettles of migrating Broad-winged Hawks, the Geo-Mural must be further examined in the coming days by visitor students to understand what can be possible after restoration. These three murals are appealing to the eye, and will teach all FAM visitors about the surrounding environment and its potential.
c) The Mill, as restored and used, is a model of energy efficiency and green technology. Examples include use of recycled products such as WheatBoard for our stairwells (described above), recycled rubber tiles for our grade level flooring, zero V.O.C. paints and stains protecting our walls and floors, countertops made of recycled industrial waste, floorboard and zoned heating on every floor, and highly efficient insulation made from beets and cellulose blown into the ceiling. Only environmentally safe products are used in its maintenance and cleaning, and these products are affordable for home use.
Objectives:
Objective: Restore historic Illick’s Mill to serve as a home for environmental education and action in popular Monocacy Park, and use the space to teach environmental principles and stewardship to high school juniors and seniors by doing work that benefits the community and watershed: On-going since 2001
Objective: Help other schools and/or communities create similar service learning experiences using the student-led restoration of Illick’s Mill as a model: On-going since 2003 (Two completed projects – one in Sitka, Alaska, the other in Reading, PA – were modeled after the Illick’s Mill Project)
Objective: Devise a research-based teaching strategy that emphasizes increased comfort levels in nature while making measurable improvements to the watershed, and outfit second floor classroom center (30’ x 90 foot space) to maximize appeal to elementary and middle school students: Funds requested
Objective: Choose educational materials after thorough research and consultation with experienced managers of environmental centers:, and choose environmental education models after thorough research and consultation with local naturalists and environmental education teachers: Done
Objective: Create pre-experience and post-experience curriculum for classroom use prior to FAM experience; create curriculum for three-day environmental experience that meets FAM’s goals and aligns with BASD curriculum: In progress
Objective: Devise curriculum to also include fun, aerobic activities in nature: In progress
Objective: Using SurveyMonkey, create pre-experience, post-experience and long-term surveys for visitor students, to measure attitudes toward nature, experience in nature, and key environmental concepts geared to age level
Objective: Create pre-experience and post-experience and long-term surveys using SurveyMonkey for visitor teachers to measure attitudes toward nature, experience in nature, and key environmental concepts
Objective: Choose 2010-2011 FAM students based on diverse skills and backrgrounds needed to run FAM as well as environmental interest and comfort in nature
Objective: Using district email and in-service speaking opportunity on June 8 and 9, 2010, inform fourth grade teachers and seventh grade science teachers in BASD of three-day environmental education and action experiences available in 2010-2011 school year
Objective: Using district email and inter-district mail, schedule 17 teachers to participate in pre-teaching and testing, the three-day educational experience, and post-teaching and testing in 2010-2011 school year
Objective: Intensively train new class of FAM students in applicable and important environmental concepts and curriculum delivery
Objective: Using pre-experience survey results, create teams of visitor students, and pair up each FAM student with a visitor student to maximize visitor student comfort and reception to learning
Objective: Begin three-day experiences by October, 2010
Objective: Open visitor experience by orienting them to geographical location in relation to familiar landmarks and raising their awareness of environmental stressors in Monocacy Park using Google Earth, LED projector, and screen
Objective: Use watershed non-point source pollution model and wetlands non-point source pollution model to increase environmental knowledge and awareness of the issues facing Monocacy Creek and other waterways.
Objective: During student experience, engage visitor students in vigorous, environmentally significant, and fun action over three consecutive days
Objective: Every visitor student will learn about nature by accomplishing critically-needed environmental projects in Monocacy Park or Monocacy Nature Preserve
Objective: Visitor experience will end with students posting short essays describing their environmental achievements on nicenet.org
Objective: Subsequent classes will prepare for their visits by following our progress on nicenet.org
Objective: Visting teachers will deliver post-experience curriculum to extend student learning and increase retention and restore interest
Objective: Post-experience surveys will measure changes in environmental knowledge and attitudes
Objectives: Long-range surveys, sent to students two months after their visit will further test retention and longer term changes in attitudes toward nature
Objective: A minimum of 547 students and 19 teachers will participate in the 2010-2011 school year
Objective: FAM will be consistently and attentively maintained so that it remains an attractive and appealing destination: On-going
Objective: FAM will be created, outfitted, and maintained following green standards: On-going
Objective: FAM will be created, outfitted, and maintained to accentuate the mill’s intrinsic beauty and early-industrial era green technology and design: On-going
Objective: Three educational murals will be completed by 2012: “The Life-cycle of the Leopard Frog” (completed), “Native Tree Structural Mural,” (in progress), and “The Geo-Mural,” (in progress)
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