Boston Flora

Tag: Simmons College

  • Friday, December 10, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Eco-Friendly Healthy Eating: Nutrition to Support Landscape Professionals and Gardeners, Online

    Our planet is changing. Now more than ever, it is important to choose sustainable, climate-friendly foods. In this Ecological Landscape Alliance December 10 webinar at noon, Samantha McCarthy, registered dietitian, will discuss how to incorporate an eco-friendly diet pattern into your life not only to help the planet, but also to improve your health and support the high physical demand put on landscape professionals . Topics discussed will include:

    • Diet and environmental footprint
    • Key diet patterns to minimize eco-impact
    • Seasonal diet changes to support changing activity levels
    • The anti-inflammatory diet
    • Plant-based Diets, the environment, and inflammation in the body

    Samantha McCarthy MS, RD/LDN has worked in the nutrition and fitness field for over 10 years. She currently works at Cedardale Health and Fitness in Haverhill, MA as the Director of Wellness and Group Exercise. She counsels a broad range of clients, specializing in weight loss, chronic disease prevention and management, and sports nutrition. Sam has a passion for helping others reach their health and wellness goals. She has a comprehensive approach to health incorporating nutrition, exercise, stress management, and behavior change into her counseling.

    Sam received her bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Connecticut with a minor in nutrition for exercise and sport. While working in Boston as a dietitian and fitness professional, she received her master’s degree in nutrition and health promotion from Simmons College. In her free time, Sam enjoys cooking, gardening, reading, and spending time outdoors.

    Register at http://ecolandscaping.org

  • Friday, April 1, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Aquatic and Terrestrial Decomposition of the Invasive Norway Maple

    The New England Botanical Club will hold its April 1st meeting at 6:45 in the Haller Lecture Hall, Room 102, Geological Museum, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge. The speaker will be Dr. Anna Aguilera, Assistant Professor of Biology, Simmons College in Boston, who will speak on Aquatic and Terrestrial Decomposition of the Invasive Norway Maple. The meeting is open to the public. For more information visit www.rhodora.org.

  • Tuesday, November 12 – 2013 Annual Meeting of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy

    You are invited to the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy on Tuesday, November 12 at the Linda K. Paresky Conference Center at Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, Massachusetts.  Reception begins at 5:30, program at 6 pm.  Please join them and come together to thank volunteers, celebrate our parks community, and share a vision of the Emerald Necklace.  The Keynote Address will be given by Ned Friedman: The Emerald Necklace – Urban Gems of Landscape and Biodiversity.  There will be a special presentation of the 2013 Volunteer of the Year Award to Gerry Wright, co-founder of Olmsted 2022, Friends of Jamaica Pond, and Friends of Olmsted Park – Boston.  Hosting sponsor of this meeting is Simmons College, and the meeting sponsors are MASCO and Colleges of the Fenway.  This event is free and open to the public.  RSVP by November 4 online at www.emeraldnecklace.org, or by calling 617-522-2700.

    William (Ned) Friedman is Director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, and Arnold Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.  He received an A.B. in Biology from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of California, Berkeley.

    http://news.harvard.edu/gazette//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/092710_Friedman_Ned_42_605.jpg

  • Saturday, April 27, 9:00 am – 2:00 pm – Climate Change: What Would Olmsted Do?

    Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy Panel entitled Climate Change: What Would Olmsted Do? beginning at 10 am moderated by Ted Landsmark, President and CEO of the Boston Architectural College with panel speakers: Ethan Carr, Author and Olmsted Scholar, Brian Swett, City of Boston Chief of Energy and Environment and Jhana Senxian, Founder and CEO of the Sustainability Guild International. Coffee and Registration at 9 am. Presented by Olmsted 2022 at Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston. Registration fee $10 (includes coffee and lunch). Reserve online at https://25749.thankyou4caring.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=300

    http://i43.tower.com/images/mm100247048/wilderness-by-design-ethan-carr-paperback-cover-art.jpg

  • Tuesday, October 4, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens

    Gardens and Spirit: The Power of Landscapes to Transform, is a series offered by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and Trinity Church in the City of Boston.  The first of this year’s lectures will take place Tuesday, October 4, from 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm at Trinity Church in Copley Square.  Vaughn Sills, Associate Professor of Photography, Simmons College, and Lowry Pei, Professor of English at Simmons College, will speak on their new book,  Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens. Places for the Spirit is a stunning collection of over 80 documentary photographs of African American folk gardens — and their creators — in the Deep South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina). These landscapes have a unique historical significance due to the design elements and spiritual meanings that have been traced to the yards and gardens of American slaves and further back to their prior African heritage. These deceptively casual or whimsical foliage arrangements are subtle and symbolic reminders of the divine in everyday life, the cycles of nature, and implied right and wrong ways to live. In the spirit of “outsider” art traditions, blues musical roots, and other such folk manifestations, these gardens have a unique aesthetic and cultural significance. Over 20 years in the making, this is the first collection of fine art photography to document this subject and, as such, it adds greatly to our understanding and appreciation of this disappearing element of African American culture. Fee is $15 for Arboretum members, $20 for non-members.  Register on-line at http://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/.

  • Saturday, February 19, 1:30 pm – Nature Revisited

    The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Landscape Visions Lectures continue Saturday, February 19, beginning at 1:30 pm in the Kotzen Meeting Center, Lefavour Hall, Simmons College, with Amale Andraos, co-founder of WORKac, NYC, speaking on Nature Revisited.

    Today, in the face of global urbanization, exploding population, and shrinking resources, architecture, cities, and nature are at a crossroads. Moving beyond the binary—white or green, architecture or landscape, urban or rural—we must ask how we can reinvent nature for the twenty-first century. Andraos examines recent projects by WORKac that shed light on the current situation and suggest a new course for the future.

    Based in New York City, WORKac develops architectural and urban projects that engage culture and consciousness, nature and artificiality, surrealism and pragmatism. WORKac is involved in projects at all scales, ranging from a master plan for the new BAM cultural district in Brooklyn, to a single family villa in Inner Mongolia, China. Recent completed projects include the installation ‘Public Farm 1’ at PS1/MoMA and the new headquarters for Diane von Furstenberg. Current work includes the new Kew Gardens Hills Library in Queens, the extension of the Clark Art Institute at Mass MoCA, a new Children’s Museum for the Arts, and the first Edible Schoolyard New York City with Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation.

    Amale Andraos is a visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Architecture and has taught at numerous institutions including Harvard and Columbia Universities, the University of Pennsylvania, Parsons School of Design, and the American University in Beirut. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She has lived in Saudi Arabia, France, Canada and the Netherlands prior to moving to New York in 2002. She currently serves on the Architectural League of New York’s Board of Directors.  Tickets ($15 general public, $12 seniors, $5 members, students free) are available on line at www.gardenermuseum.org.  You will also find directions to the Kotzen Meeting Center on the site.

  • Saturday, January 22, 1:30 pm – 100 Gardens: Conceptual Gardens and New Landscapes

    The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Landscape Visions Lectures continue this winter at the Kotzen Meeting Center, Lefavour Hall, Simmons College, during the construction of the Gardner Museum annex.  The opening event for 2011 will take place at 1:30 pm on Saturday, January 22, with Alexander Reford, founder of the International Garden Festival in Quebec, speaking on 100 Gardens: Conceptual Gardens and New Landscapes.

    Every year, designers create ephemeral gardens on small sites with limited budgets for Quebec’s International Garden Festival. Hampered by few other constraints, they have complete liberty to experiment and innovate. The resulting conceptual gardens convey a message, encourage participation, and invite vigorous debate rather than quiet contemplation.  Reford presents selections from the gardens exhibited since 2000 and reflects on the ways they reinvigorate the traditional garden, offering new experiences to visitors and new ways of thinking about and designing gardens.

    Schooled as an historian, Alexander Reford is an honorary member of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. In 2009, he was awarded the Frederick-Todd Prize by the Association des Architectes Paysagistes du Québec. In the same year, the Montréal Botanical Garden bestowed the Henry-Teuscher Prize on Alexander Reford and Elsie Reford (posthumous) for their contribution to horticulture in Québec.  Tickets are $15 for the general public, $12 for seniors, $5 for members, and free for students.  Will-call tickets will be available for pickup at the Kotzen Meeting Center.  Tickets will be available for purchase on the day of each lecture at the Gardener Museum’s front desk, pending availability.  Please note that capacity is limited, and advance ticket purchase is strongly recommended.  You may order on line at www.gardnermuseum.org, where you will also find a map directing you to the site.