The Jewish Farm School, a Philly-based environmental education nonprofit, recently received a grant to run a series of early childhood garden-based education program in West Philadelphia. The Side Yard Seedlings program is launching May 31 and will offer a dozen sessions on weekdays and Sundays this summer and fall. Children ages 2 to 6 and their caregivers will be gathering at the Jewish Farm School garden at 50th and Cedar for 90-minute sessions to care for plants and for age-appropriate games and activities connected to the cycles of the seasons and the themes of the Hebrew calendar.  Continue Reading

West Philly educator Carole Williams-Green, who founded the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center, will be honored by the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education with the 2016 Meigs Award. The award is given annually to a regional leader who embodies the spirit and leadership of Henry Meigs, one of the Schuylkill Center’s founders.

A former public school teacher and administrator, Williams-Green led a successful multi-decade effort to rehabilitate the historic Fairmount Park Police stables in Fairmount Park’s Cobbs Creek, creating an environmental education center. Founded in 1991, the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center opened its doors in 2001.

Williams-Green has made a substantial contribution to environmental education in the Philadelphia region, reaching communities often excluded from traditional environmental education. She explains that “it bothered [her] that children from West Philadelphia had to travel so far to get these kinds of experiences [in nature], ones that really excited children.”  Continue Reading