City Parks Foundation is proud to have the “Green Girls” from the Green Girls Summer Institute (a CPF education program) guest blog for us during their 3 week program.

7/25/2011

Staten Island Hike
By Sade Glasgow and Jazzini Edwards

Green Girls" at Queens Botanical Garden, climbing crabapple trees!

We visited Staten Island where we went on a nature walk to look for birds. Our guide was Mike and he was nice. He and Danielle taught us about bird calls and mating calls. We also learned that eagles actually sound different inreal life than we would expect from movies. We liked looking through the binoculars because we got to see birds that we had never seen before up close. We liked learning about the different birds. We also saw a deer! It had its butt in the air and it kept looking over at our group. During lunch, we liked playing with the animal puppets at the education center.

7/26/2011

Queens Botanical Gardens
By Janmarie Acosta

Exploring the Central Park Zoo tropical bird house.

On Tuesday, we went to the Queens Botanical Gardens and we saw a bunch of different flowers, roses and trees. We saw Osage Orange trees, which were in the shape of an orange, but they were green and looked like a brain. The building was designed to be environmentally friendly. The building was designed so that when it rained, the water would fall off the building into a little pond or it was used to water the plants. It used solar and geothermal power.  We learn about compost: you put  lots of garbage in a bin with worms because the worms will eat the garbage. They had a composting toilet and it didn’t have any water in it because they wanted to save water. When we got back to school, we started our final projects about what we learned so far or about trips we have taken and why they were important to the environment.

7/27/2011

Bronx River Canoe Trip
By Niyea Simeon

Venturing out on the canoe trip.

Canoeing on the Bronx River was very fun because we had a new experience. We had really good instructions about how to row. Then when we got onto the river, the boats felt really shaky and the water was very shallow. When some of us were paddling, we were very nervous. But by the end of the trip, people got over their fear of canoeing. There were lots of trees and insects along the river. If people hadn’t yelled so loudly, we would have heard the birds that live along the river. Some people shouted because they hadn’t been canoeing before and had trouble working with their team. My favorite part of the day was when we got to the end of the ride, I was in a boat with a canoe guide. He told us to relax our hips and move with the boat and then he rocked the boat back and forth. I was kind of scared but it was still fun.

7/28/2011
Central Park Zoo
By Akira Lewis

Today we went to the Central Park Zoo. While we were there, we saw many different types of birds in the Tropic Zone. We had to list some characteristics of the birds and write down what our specific bird was doing. We did this to help the zookeepers observe any changes in the birds behavior from one day to another. After we left the birds, we met a zookeeper and she told us about what she does. After she talked, we had many questions for her. Then we went to the sea lion feeding, which I liked. The sea lions did many tricks. Then we had lunch. After that, we saw snow monkeys that had pink butts! I saw an animal that looked like a penguin and a turtle put together. In the petting zoo, I saw two llamas, 3 alpacas, a cow, five goats and two pigs. My favorite part of the day was seeing all the animals.

The three-week Green Girls Summer Institute, going into its sixth summer, serves 30 girls from the four Young Women’s Leadership Schools in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with hands-on activities and trips to parks and natural areas, wildlife refuges, and cultural institutions. Green Girls provides middle-school girls with intensive summer experiences that enrich their understanding of science and environmental justice issues, familiarize them with New York City’s vast natural and institutional resources, and promote leadership and life skills. Ultimately, the Green Girls Summer Institute helps girls explore their own vast potential and the extensive career possibilities available in the sciences.

These carefully-selected and sequenced activities address a variety of

science subject matter, including environmental education, ecology, biology, geology, zoology, and botany. Sessions encompass an array of environmental and environmental justice issues that focus on community problems and the need for green spaces, water conservation, air quality and the natural world.