​Hello Dear School Community and Ecology volunteers,
This year has seen a fundamental shift in the way our ecology program works.
In previous years I organized field experiences for every class at every grade level. Together we ventured forth into the wild places. I did classes before the trip to prep them, and often after the trip to debrief.  I sent out weekly messages telling my schedule and asking for parent volunteers to help lead the explorations. Those messages were sent to my EcologyVolunteers email list, and often re-printed in Green Notes as Mr. Leki's Blog, and in the Waters Elementary School website. 
This year all that has changed. I have taken on a full class load (17 classes per week), virtually. All the lesson plans have been posted on the watersecology.org website. These are updated daily, and it is a working document, a work in progress, open to our community.  For the past ten weeks Jules Peterson-Green and I have been producing video segments to use in the virtual ecology program. This means that songs, field excursions, science shorts,  invitations, interviews are all posted and available for our families to view, and re-view.  It has been a big shift for us. Very different and difficult. Our videos make it possible for us to show things, rather than just talk about them, and to introduce our students to places and concepts with a familiar figure guiding them. Because all the clips are available to our school families, we hope that our students are sharing them with you. Each lesson has special messages aimed at parents and families.
We cannot bring your child out to the wild places. But you can. 

This is how the program has emerged. Imagine each segment as part of a cycle that repeats:

Waters Virtual Ecology Program

*Waters Ecology produces lessons and video and present to classes;
  *watersecology.org posts all the lesson plans, resources and messages on website;
     *parents, students, families check out the website and the suggestions for outings;
       *families venture forth to the wild places to explore content provided by the lesson and website;
         *families self document their outings with video, journal work, and/or photos;
           *families and students share their documentation and adventures during classroom meet ups;
              *watersecology adds the new content to the website;
                 *new lessons are created and shared during the next meeting; 
Repeat! Until the end of pandemic!

So, you can see that this year every family has become essential to the student's experience of field ecology. 
We know that every family cannot go on all the field offerings, but many can, and have. Many have, and will, share with their classmates. 
This puts a special load on parents, but it also opens up a unique role and experience. It is an avenue for families
 to have reason to get out into our wild and special places more often, with a task and a goal in mind, but also with an open-ended invitation to experience
the serendipity of exploration, the surprise of discovery. 

We welcome you to this mutual adventure and welcome your feedback. Remember that the watersecology.org website is a working document and archive of the entire ecology program. Please visit, and re-visit. Learn the songs and sing along. Offer up your own art, poetry and music for us to add.

Our most recent video posting was the story that I normally tell around the campfire at Waters garden, with baked potatoes and hot cider. 
This year it is on video, and we have included a written version for you to use and share.  We hope you enjoy it.

We're Okay! How are you?
https://vimeo.com/472068011/6b975ed8ca  

written copy
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13AyZ7pG2EEzckpjtBj3F5S-hh9VqK5oB/edit  


Blessing of the season to all, the first snow on colored leaves, first frost coming, 
 Pete Leki and  the Team Waters Ecology

​Right after the storm, 
I rode around on my bike 
tree branches occupied the streets and parkways.
It altered the cultural landscape,
from mowed, tidy lawns, 
to wild organic chaos.
"Who does your landscaping?"

I asked. 
The broken limbs were full or glistening green leaves. 
Two days later they would start to brown and crisp. Not as lovely. 

At the river we had many, many large branches and trees go down,
blocking streets and alleys. 
We got to work, like so many other neighbors, 
sawing and piling and clearing a way for emergency vehicles. 
The crew from MWRD showed up two days later to haul and chip and do the heavy lifting to clear massive trunks and branches. 
They were great. Careful not to trample and damage the bank. 
But also, very, very willing to leave trunks of trees on site, on the bank, 
as we requested.
We did so to minimize the damage done by the workers on a steep bank, 
but also because, these trunks and branches, 
this sequestered CO2 is a precious part of the ecosystem.
It is congealed solar power captured by photosynthesis.
It wilill slowly decompose through the actions of insects, animals, fungi and lichen. 
It is the mark of an intact ecosystem. 

So, 
why not leave that trunk, 
those special branches ON YOUR PARKWAY?
Nature playspace for your kids, the fungi, animals and bugs! 
Eventually, depending on the tree-type, and diameter, 
it will collapse into a lovely humus, 
a wonderful soil amendment., 
It will mark out our time on earth as we watch it (and ourselves) weather, and crumble.
So much better than being hauled to a landfill. 

Mr. Leki

​Dear Friends, 
I have been enjoying doing classes on google. I hope to visit every classroom before the end of "school". Looking at their faces is like looking over a field of wildflowers!
Speaking of which, another wave of flowers is appearing in the garden. Spiderwort, Tradescantia ohioensis, has brilliant blue, three petaled flowers, in clusters, each lasting one day. At the end of the day each petal turns into a drop of blue liquid!!

Also, in our garden are the pea like blue plumes of Baptisia australis. It is actually native to lands a bit farther south, but lovely nevertheless. 

Speaking of flowers native to a bit south of us, don't miss seeing the Tulip tree on Sunnyside, on the northside between Maplewood and Rockwell. Impossibly beautiful "tulips " in bloom by the thousands!

In the school garden hundreds of "Windflowers", Anemone canadensis, are nodding their daisy like flowers in the breeze. In the bioswale, dozens of our native Iris, Blue Flag, dot the lush wetland growth.

Check it all out friends.

Mr. Leki

Dear Waters Ecology Friends, 
Besides working in the garden and on the river, hopefully to make them more beautiful, healthy and bio-diverse, for our kids to experience and learn from, when we finally get back to school.
I've been trying to do guest appearances with some of our classrooms.
Recently I have visited the 6th grades, first talking about creating pandemic journals, historical journals that each child uses to document their experiences, internal AND external, including close observation and questioning of nature. 
We also did a lesson on CSOs (combined sewage overflows) and how we can help STOP sewage from entering the  river.  It starts with an understanding of our homes, and pipes, and streets and habits.  In the end it IS up to us. I sent out a wonderful video clip of  Kari Steele, head of the Board of Commissioners, who was a former chemist for the District, asking people to NOT flush the various "wipes" down the toilet.
It reminds the kids that besides clogging pipes (and sump pumps) these nonflushables end up in the river and hanging from tree limbs during CSOs (sewage overflows)

I hope to visit all the grade levels to figure out ways for students and families can have at least some of the experiences of the ecology program. Much of our paradigm is students directly encountering nature (and human culture) and making assessments, thinking, asking questions, jotting down their own, individual thoughts. 


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CbnYdRetD4&feature=youtu.be


I'm also visiting with 1st grade, checking in on their tree ID memory. They are GOOD! I encourage you to take your 1st graders for walks and look at the trees: All of them. Collect leaves. Describe their shape and other unusual attributes. They also sang with me : Oh the trees! and Who has seen the wind. 

Mr Leki

Dear Friends, 
I'm so proud that our Waters School families have set an example at the garden and at the River, of keeping our distance, wearing masks and respecting the beautiful display of Nature's artistry that is unrolling. Others are doing less well, plowing multiple new paths down the slope at Horner, flattening areas that are just awakening with picnic blankets and tarps, someone even set up a tent!

Anyway, the promised yellow violets are carpeting the ground around one of our oaks at Waters, multitudes of brilliant glistening stars.  Away from the oaks you may see another low yellow beauty, marsh buttercup. The amazing blue of Virginia bluebells. The drooping yellow lanterns of Bellwort. And the first of a multitude of pink, five petaled Wild Geraniums. Come visit them with your family pod, keep your distance, and sketch them into your pandemic notebook! If it is crowded, come back at another time.

Catkins! 
Those long drooping sausages hanging from trees are the male flower, loaded with pollen that is making people sneeze, and making them assure people they don't have the virus. The oaks have catkins,too,  and they are providing a good share of the pollen in the air. But we have two other tree species in the garden that are part of the first grade tree study. Two trees with catkins in bloom right now. How to tell them apart??
One of them, River Birch, has papery bark that flakes off like tracing paper.
The other, Blue Beech, is also called "Musclewood", its trunk is smooth and sinewy, very unique and beautiful. The Blue Beech is tucked into the corner of the building, just south of the main entrance. The river birch are just east of the Annex, and by the Swale. 
Check them out. (Photos below, thanks Jeff)

I will try to record and send out the 1st Grade Tree ID Song "Oh, The Trees!" so that the kids can keep it fresh in their minds. I have to admit, I have the habit of naming trees as I bike down the street. Try it!.

Stay well, 

Mr. Leki

​So,
dear friends, 
I find myself in this situation every year,
wanting to invite people to be attentive to the unfolding of the native plant community, 
the spring flowers resurrected from the cold of winter, 
and the cold mud, 
the ashes of fire, 
But usually, 
I get caught up in the other business of school and life, 
and find myself well behind the opening act of spring wildflowers.
This year, we have this weird gap, 
this weird opening and stasis,
this Halt! 
demanded by the virus,
that allows me to look and look again 
and send to you this  new message about what is emerging, 
in our midst, 
but only observable by eyes that are attentive, 
that seek to see, miracles unwinding. 

Today, in my front yard, 
the first blossom of Bloodroot, 
Sanguinaria canadensis,
poked its smiley face upwards. 
This flower is the quintessential child's idea of a flower:
a "daisy" smiling white petals and a yellow center.
Love for daisy's aside, 
this IS NOT a daisy, 
similar pattern but totally different life style.
Soon, it will grow WAY bigger,. 
shed its petals, and unfurl big, strange shaped leaves that will greedily absorb sunlight to recharge its subterranean storage batteries, to be ready for Spring 2021 (what faith!).
Strategy #2 for Sanguinaria is to produce seeds born in great bean-like pods. 
Who? What is pollinating this early early Spring bloomer???
The following from Flora of the Chicago Region,
a giant tome from Georould Wilhelm and Laura Rericha,
it is all in italics if you want to skip over:
Asclera ruficollis, a false blister beetle, commonly visits the corolla to glean pollen.  The following bees have been vouchered from the corollas, all of them female: Andrena carlini, Andrena dunningi, Andrena vicina, Apis mellifera,  Serafina callcerata, and Lasioglossum versatum...."

As you can see, some people are watching very closely this incredibly beautiful flower, so rare now.  It IS in our Waters School Garden, but only one or two. Look, search, carefully, protect. Ssshhhhhh. It will drop its petals in the first warm day, 
Later you will know it by its wonderfully shaped leaves. 



Not to spoil things but 1,2,3,4,5,6,other species are popping up.
In my front yard, 
Twinleaf, Jeffersonia diphylla,
the first leaves look like Venus Flytraps,
buds popping up, 50 or 60 in my front yard, 
similar to Bloodroot, 
but also ephemeral, short bloom time,
also seeded into Waters School garden. 
Look for it!

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​Finally, there is the almost hallucinatory way the ground is transforming from the grey black of soil into the blue, blue greens, pearly whites and purples as the tips Virginia Waterleaf, Virginia Bluebells, Golden Alexander,  Mayapple, Yellow violets, and a variety of sedges emerge carpeting the ground. Look for them!
Mr. Leki
from a distance

...but the leaves are out, the buds are forming, 
soon, soon....
In the meantime, 
check out a native plant in full bloom:
Silver Maple trees.
Look up!
If you have access to a first grader, ask them to show you a silver maple. 
It is always the first tree to bloom  in late winter, early spring. 
And, with the great sense of humor and creativity of nature, 
silver maples have separate male and female flowers on the same tree....
sometimes!
Some years, it's only male flowers, 
some years female flowers. 
Anyway, the thing you will see, 
if you look up as you walk around the neighborhood today, 
is a certain tree with bunches of flowers popping out, red, yellow and white, 
usually way up high. 
But look on the ground. Squirrels routinely prune these twigs for bits of fresh veggies.  The flowers are on the parkway lawns, like Dr. Suess snickety switches.  Hooray for first flowers.  Find and draw. The plant is:
Silver  maple 
Acer saccharinum. 

If you need more. 
right now the catkins of American Hazelnut are extending from skinny one inch long sausages, into fat sausages 3-4 inches long, laden with pollen. 
These are the "male" flowers of the species, called catkins. (ask you 1rst grader). 
This dangling caterpillar is preparing to release millions of pollen grains, a great and profligate over reach. Still, it is amazing to see the pollen lofted by a breeze. There is a tiny female flower forming now, too,
on the same bush,
deep deep red, tiny as the d in red. 
It will, if pollinated, 
produce the gorgeous and outrageous seed pod and cluster that is American Hazelnut. 
Draw now, and later, as the buds develop.
You might want to bring along a magnifying glass, 
to see the tiny details,
never a disappointment. 
We have other native plants that have separate male flowers, catkins:
Blue Beech, 
River Birch, 
and all the oaks. 
European Alder also has these prodigious danglers. 
Look for them along the bioswale on Campbell. 

Finally, finally, 
the first first plant up in my front yard looks just like tulip leaves, 
but they are NOT!
They are Wild Leek, 
Alium trichoccum.
If you are unsure, 
nip a tiny piece of the leave and smell:
Wild leek is definitely onion:
sweet, sweet lovely onion. 
At my house we harvest basketfuls of the leaves and cook them quickly, like spinach. 
It is easy to grow and quick to spread. 
The leaves come up in spring and die back quickly. 
In late summer, the plant sends up a stalk with a spherical cluster of white blossoms, no more than 12 inches tall, in the dark understory. 
These flowers in turn, transform into beautiful black pearls, the seeds. 
Look! Contemplate. Draw. Get to know these community members, 
Mr. Leki

Dear Friends, 
One week plus 2 days in!
I saw many families walking the school grounds, mostly distancing themselves from others. The gardens are a quiet blessing, a way station. The sidewalks themselves are becoming thoroughfares for people desperate to be outside. Take care.
I have been working on repairing the cold frames and raised beds, fixing fencing and tidying up the sheds.
Sooner or later we will be back to school and I hope the gardens will be in great shape.  If anyone would like to take up one of the many garden tasks, for solitary meditation, let me know. We need post hole diggers, pruners, debris picker-uppers, compost haulers. Let me know and I'll set you up.
It IS Spring. And if you walk the neighborhood streets you will already see flowers up and in bloom:
Narcissus, snowdrops, crocuses, etc. All these welcome dollops of color come from Europe and tend to be common and the first things up. But our garden is a haven for our own rare, native spring flowers. I thought it might be a good solitary activity for child and parent, sketch book or journal in hand, to search for, greet, and introduce yourself to each species as they unfurl. I will tell you what to look for, and their names. You search and draw and date and label.
I will tell you the first native that will flower (I think) 
Yellow Violet (funny name, like red blue)
Its science name is : Viola pubescens

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​Once it starts to bloom, you will find hundreds of them. You have to get down low and look very closely. The are gorgeous.  Most of our spring ephemeral wildflowers are woodland species. So look for them under the oaks. Please don't cross fence lines because many plants are starting to poke their heads up right now, and will be damaged if stepped on. 

I will try to lead you to other wildflowers as they appear. Maybe one a day, or one every other day.
If I see you in the garden, I will leave you to your own space, but  I will wave you a welcome.

Mr. Leki

Dear Friends, 
I've attached the collective poems of our three 7th grade classes, based on phrases they developed during their winter trip to describe the City,Sky, Lake and Shore. They are very powerful and evocative. Read them out loud over dinner!
We have finished the Winter Field Ecology Trips! Yes! No cancellations! No postponements. Yes!
Iv'e spend a good amount of time reading (with treasured volunteers) and responding to Mighty Acorns journals. We have finished 3 of 7 classrooms. It is fun and rewarding work that I hope to finish before the weather turns irresistible.
If you would like to help, come on any day next week, from drop off until 10:30. Or after 1:00.
I hope to start bringing classes out to the garden soon, and Wednesday evening community workdays will start next Wednesday (March 18) at 5:00 pm.
With Gratitude for your help and support,
Mr. Leki

Montrose Point 302
Montrose Point 305
Montrose Point 309

Dear Friends, 
This week will be mostly spent reading and responding to Mighty Acorn Journals and preparing trip maps for the 6th grade River tour. 
I will provide some very good coffee and tea for anyone that would like to work on these in the mornings this week.  It will be fun.

Also, if you are interested in learning about native ecology and prescription burns:

Riverbank Neighbors and Waters School Gardens will be presenting a workshop:

"Managing Native Gardens in the City: learn how certified crews conduct controlled, permitted burns of small gardens in Chicago."  

Thursday, February 27, 2020
Sulzer Regional Library
6:00 - 8:00

Presentations, Video, and Roundtable 
to share information about this invaluable tool.

Mr. Leki