Thanks, Jim Egenrieder, for a great class field trip to Turkey Run!  In classrooms, we often study things in isolation, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But being outside make it clear how everything ties together - plant and animal species, availability and quality of water, weather conditions, human land use. I learned many things I didn't know, including what the fruit of the pawpaw (Asimina triloba) tastes like! I'm eager to go back to Turkey Run with my family, and also to learn more about Four Mile Run, the stream closest to my school.

Perspective

"Perspective" is the word I keep thinking about since the first meeting of our watershed class. Maintaining the health of a watershed - anywhere in the world - is essential to communities, yet each member of the community views the watershed from a different perspective, shaped by their own experiences, information, needs, desires, hopes, resources, and biases.

Northern tip of Manhattan Island, a neighborhood know as Inwood. The large river on the left (west) is the Hudson. The one that curves around to the north and east is the Harlem River, which is technically a tidal strait. The purple marker indicates where I grew up. Googlemaps did not exist when I was a kid, so my perspective was very different from that shown here. I did spent a lot of time near the water, but that involved what seemed like a long walk to me then - with obstacles including road, train tracks, and isolated areas.