Volume 3, Issue 6
Work in Progress: student work on display through June 10

Students in the Environmental Science and Resource Management and Restoration Ecology and Environmental Horticulture programs are displaying posters in the Miller Library through June 10th. Learn about the students' work to improve pollinator and rare plant habitat, design education programs, control invasive plants, and much more!

Not able to visit the library before the posters come down? View them at your leisure, from our website.

Early Birds plein air show begins June 17

Beth Means lives nearby and loves the early morning light at the Center. She has been an avid outdoor painter for 15 years and has her studio in Wallingford.

 Presenting our staff and summer hours
from Library Manager Brian Thompson

This has been a year of change in the staffing for the Miller Library and I thought this would be a good time to present the current staff. With me in the picture at left are Jessica Anderson, Rebecca Alexander, Laura Blumhagen, and Tracy Mehlin. Follow their links to see what they do for the Miller Library, how they got here, and their special interests, especially in horticulture (all are gardeners). I promise to make my own profile available very soon!

Summer hours start soon, with a few special closures to note this year. The Library will be closed Tuesday, June 21, due to an all-staff program. On Saturday, June 25, the Library will also be closed, beginning our summer schedule, with the Library closed Saturdays June 25-September 3. During the summer, visit us during our summer open hours: Monday noon to 8:00 pm (June 13-September 26), excepting July 4 and Labor Day, and Tuesday through Friday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Check our website for more details about the summer schedule.

New from David Sobel: Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens
reviewed by Laura Blumhagen

This is an excerpt. Read the full review in our Gardening Answers Knowledgebase.

Reading David Sobel's latest book feels like attending a national conference on outdoor early childhood education. Each chapter draws on the expertise and experience of key decision-makers working with young children in nature programs all over the country. The format also gives a sense of history and progress over time, with Sobel's journal entries from his work in outdoor education in the 1970s and his personal parenting journals from the 1990s presented alongside his contemporary research and observations from visits to today’s outdoor preschools. ...

A central theme is the developmental case for a style of outdoor education where instructors act as mentors and guides as children experiment, choose activities and learn to work together, not only solving their own problems but deciding for themselves what questions they will ask and what games and projects to invent on the spot. These experiences, he argues, lead young children to develop initiative, perseverance and creativity as well as a richer vocabulary, a love of nature, and social skills that will serve them (and their communities) well in later life. Sobel's reasoning is persuasive and the examples he gives are diverse and fascinating. ...

This book will intrigue anyone with an interest in outdoor education for young children. 

New to the Library