Boston Flora

Tag: Dartmouth College

  • Wednesday, October 20, 10:00 am – An Update on the Boston City Hall Project,Online

    The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s October meeting will take place October 20 at 10:00 am online on Zoom. Kate Tooke, Associate Principal, ASLA, PLA, will discuss the Boston City Hall Plaza redesign and the next stages in the process. The City of Boston has a short video we recommend to bring you up to speed on the project before the meeting: https://www.boston.gov/departments/public-facilities/city-hall-plaza-renovation

    Kate is a landscape architect at Sasaki. Her project leadership, strategic thinking, design eye, and technical skills have been instrumental in the success of diverse projects ranging from master planning to site-scale work. As a naturally interdisciplinary thinker, she excels at collaborating across disciplines to craft elegant, contextual solutions to complex design challenges.

    Prior to discovering landscape architecture, Kate was a high school math and physics teacher in the Boston Public School system. Her passion for inspiring and empowering urban youth infuses her work as a landscape architect. She values engaging stakeholders in the design of their own urban public spaces through lively workshops, and is particularly interested civic open spaces that support the play and learning of city children. Kate pursues independent research on children’s outdoor environments, including schoolyards, playscapes, and outdoor classrooms.

    Kate holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Massachusetts, a master’s degree in education from Lesley University, and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Dartmouth College. She earned the 2011 National Olmsted Scholar award, the highest honor of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF), for her work on urban schoolyards, and has since served on LAF’s board of directors. Kate remains active in the academic world through teaching appointments at the Rhode Island School of Design and University of Massachusetts Amherst as well as through volunteer work with local public schools.

    Please note: As COVID and its variants create new challenges, we have decided to hold this presentation virtually on ZOOM. If you are a Garden Club member, you will receive a notice. If you are not a member and are interested in attending, click HERE and we will put you on the notification list.

  • Wednesday, February 22, 6:00 pm – Next of Kin: Seeing Extinction Through the Artist’s Lens

    How do we understand complex ecological issues such as climate change and species extinction? What role do the arts play in this understanding, compared to — or in collaboration with — the sciences? What is the role of empathy or belief, as opposed to knowledge? This interdisciplinary panel discussion at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, on Wednesday, February 22 at 6 pm, will explore these important questions within the context of the new HMNH exhibition Next of Kin: Seeing Extinction through the Artist’s Lens, which uses special photography techniques, lighting and sound design, and specimens of extinct or endangered animals from Harvard collections to evoke empathy with our “next of kin.”

    Presented in collaboration with the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University. Panelists include Carrie Lambert-Beattie, Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies and History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, Christina Seely, Artist and Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College, and Ross Virginia, Myers Family Professor of Environmental Science and Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Uniderstanding, Dartmouth College. The panel will be moderated by Edward Morris, Artist and Professor of Practice, Department of Transmedia, Co-Director of The Canary Lab, Syracuse University.

    Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage. Free and open to the public. Presented in collaboration with the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University.

  • Through February 14, 2016 – Drawing Trees, Painting the Landscape: Frank M. Rines (1892-1962)

    Draftsman, landscape painter, teacher, and writer, Frank M. Rines had an intense interest in, and skill for, drawing trees. He produced five books on drawing, which were mid- 20th century guides for instruction in landscape and tree drawing techniques. In Design and Construction in Tree Drawing, he concentrated on the form and structure of trees. Rines was skilled in the art of observation, taught and was committed to students and communities of artists throughout Boston and New England. As a draftsman and painter, he worked in pencil, watercolor, oil, and charcoal. Rines’s work is included in a number of museum collections including Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Dartmouth’s Hood Museum in New Hampshire. The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University will mount an exhibit of Frank M. Rines in the Hunnewell Building through February 14, 2016.

    Note: The Hunnewell Building lecture hall is often used for meetings and classes. Please call 617.384.5209 for exhibition availability, and refer to Hunnewell Visitor Center hours at  http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/visit/hours-services-and-policies/.

  • Thursday, November 6, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Invasive Species: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions

    Invasive species are a leading component of environmental change. Some of the main challenges in invasive species research are understanding the causes of species invasions, their consequences in the invaded range, and solutions for invasive species management. This talk on Thursday, November 6 will combine principles from ecology and economics to understand causes, consequences and solutions to invasive species management.

    Rebecca Irwin is an Associate Professor in the Biology Department at Dartmouth College. Dr. Irwin’s research focuses on the ecology and evolution of multiple-species interactions, pollination biology, and species invasions. She received a B.A. in Biology from Middlebury College, and she holds a PhD in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Vermont. Her research is well funded, having received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation as well as other organizations. Her impressive publication record includes articles in top journals such as Ecology, Ecology Letters, and PNAS.

    Lunch & Learn lectures take place every Thursday from 12:00-1:00pm at the Lincoln Filene Center, Rabb Room on the Medford Campus during the academic year. The Tufts Institute of the Environment generously sponsors lunch. If you are interested in participating in the Lunch & Learn program as a guest lecturer/participant, contact environmentalstudies@tufts.edu.

    You can’t make it to the talk? No problem! Watch it live here from your computer or smart phone.

  • Thursday, March 15, 7:00 pm – The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance

    Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge, hosts author Tovar Cerulli on Thursday, March 15, beginning at 7 pm. Drawing on personal experience, philosophy, history, and religion, Cerulli shows how America’s overly sanitized habits of consumption have disconnected us from our food, resulting in many of the spiritual and environmental crises we now face. In this time of intensifying concern over ecological degradation and animal welfare, how do we make peace with the fact that, even by growing organic vegetables, life is sustained by death? As a boy, Tovar Cerulli spent his summers fishing for trout and hunting bullfrogs. While still in high school, he began to experiment with vegetarianism. By the age of twenty he was a vegan. A decade later, in the face of declining health, he returned to omnivory and within a few years found himself heading into the woods, rifle in hand. Tovar split his undergraduate years between Dartmouth College and the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, and has worked as a carpenter and freelance writer. An environmentalist, Tovar has also worked as a logger. He is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student at UMass Amherst. His research is focused on food, hunting, and human relationships with nature. For more information, visit www.portersquarebooks.com, or call 617-491-2220.