Category: Uncategorized

Dear Friends,  
This past week I spoke to our eighth graders about Environmental Justice. In our city and county and country, certain communities find themselves surrounded by toxic industry, with polluted air and polluted soils and water. These communities suffer from higher rates of asthma, cancer and other health issues. And these communities tend to be poor, working class, African American and LatinX. As one 8th Grader commented “It’s just not fair.”
At issue at this moment is the relocation of the General Iron Recycling smelter from  Lincoln Park, to the far Southeast corner of Chicago, a community surrounded by garbage dumps, sludge drying pads, industrial fumes and chemical dusts. This community is engaging in a courageous struggle to deny an operating permit to General Iron. A group of local residents has been engaged in a Hunger Strike for the past week to try to force the City to commit to denying the permit.  Waters Ecology interviewed one of the strikers, Yesenia Chavez, a college student majoring in Biology, to share with our 8th graders.
On Monday people from around the city, including our community,  will join the hunger strike for one day. I,  along  with others in our ward, including

As of Sunday, noon, our list from our neighborhood organizations includes:

• Matt Rundquist, of the Green Council
• Pete Leki, Waters School Ecology teacher and Riverbank Neighbors
• Lisa Hish, of Riverbank Neighbors and the Green Council
• Ivan Handler, of the Green Council. statement: “This is how we express that we are hungry for environmental justice.”
• Michael Sewall of the Green Council.
• Jules Peterson-Green.. Green Council, Riverbank Neighbors
• Heather Smith 1st grader Waters School Mom and Adjunct Professor, DePaul University Geography Department
• Nick Anderson of the Lincoln Square Ravenswood Solidarity Network and

• 60 +people listed here: City-Wide page organized by Judy Pollock, Chicago Audubon Society

Solidarity can tip the scales away from injustice. 

Learn more and consider signing up here for our local neighborhood effort to support the city wide event.

Here is the link Chicago Audubon and activist Judy Pollack, who initiated this support action, to sign a petition and join the Hunger Strike:
https://www.chicagoaudubon.org/new-events/2021/2/22/one-day-hunger-strike-to-oppose-the-permit-for-general-iron

Mr. Leki

During the Pandemic school shutdown, I have received many photos from school families and friends from the field: many birds (alive and dead), gardens and prepared dishes, landscapes, moons, suns, river and lake. I’ve put them together in a gallery showing. Our children are here, but you won’t see any crowds. More than anything that defines the Pandemic is our inability to gather together. Hoping for the day, soon, when that will be remedied.

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Dear Friends,
This past week we spent part of my time in the primary grades writing Valentine’s cards to Mother Nature (Except for Kindergarten. They made cards for their other moms) I asked the kids do a beautiful drawing, and write a message to Mother Nature. I asked them to punch a hole on the card and attach a string or ribbon. I asked them to ask their folks to take them to the riverbank, or Waters Gardens, or even to a tree or bush in their own yard, and attach that card. In this small way we could thank Nature for her gifts, and maybe others would see the cards, read them and be reminded.

The Kindergarten cards are mostly renderings of the unlikely pairing of a spider with a palm tree. They saw something in each other, these two, and love blossomed. May that be Mother Nature’s gift to us, the ability to see in another being, something that connects, that creates something new. Cloud and tree, bacteria and Blue whale, we are truly One family, One being, on this beloved Earth.

Thank you, friends, for sharing your children’s messages.

Mr. Leki

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Dear community, Jules writing.

1 Here’s the new little eco-film clip that we made this week that was shared in some ecology lessons. It’s not cinema quality, but that’s not the goal. Often, parents also see the videos and let us know that they enjoyed them too. They are sweet to watch with your children. enjoy. If I had time to do another draft, there would be a 3rd segment after the musical interlude, a segment where we share something I discovered myself.. that you can recognize cottonwood trees with your eyes closed, by listening for them. I’ll try to record the sound this summer. I love cottonwoods! There’s so much to love about them and their little heart shaped leaves!

2 Valentines to the garden, the flowers, the trees, or mother nature: This week, some of Pete’s ecology classes made some Valentines and will be bringing them to the garden or other natural places. This was an idea inspired by friends Andrea Dennis (Friends of the Park) and Leslie Borns (steward of Montrose Point) who invited us to participate in a similar project (more on that in coming days…) We thought we would invite you to also write a love letter to the river or garden or a place on this planet where nature touches your heart. If you are so moved, you are also invited to document your Valentines and send us a photo. I’ll use them is a little video or for the website… Here’s one…

3 Many in the community are planning to attend the virtual services for Karen Lewis today at 5pm and wanted to share the invitation. I’ll add that if you don’t know who she is, it may lift you up immensely to see the video that will be shown. Many many many loved her and wished that cancer didn’t stop her. She was running for mayor. She changed Chicago for the better. Her vision and example can still guide us. If you miss the services, we’ll see if we can share the link to the video. If it weren’t pandemic times, there would be a massive event and we would all go together.

Here is a link to the online event. 5pm today Thurs, 2/11/21

be well.

j

Hello Ecofriends,

At this time of year we traditionally, with the Kindergardeners, begin a little project on growing spider plants, Chlorophytum comosum. These tropical plants have long, narrow,  arching leaves. When they are ready, they develop long arching stems dotted with delicate white flowers. When the flowers are finished,  they leave behind the primordial beginnings of a new plants, clinging to the stem,  miniatures of their mother, complete with leaves and a straggle of roots hanging down. The leaves and the roots vaguely resemble spiders. The babies can be clipped from this umbillicus, and set in a jar of water where they will steadily increase in size, both leaves and roots. After a few months they are ready for planting in soil, and beginning the cycle again.

That is what we normally do with the kinder kids, and if you have a spider plant, and a kindergartener, you might try it at home. A very low risk experiment.  When I showed the kinder-kids a spiderplant this week, one child burst out: “We have that! You gave one to my sister and now it is HUGE!”
The project comes with a slightly absurd and a-scientific song and story about a spider that falls in love with a palm tree, gets married and has kids. It is on the watersecology.org website under Kindergarden, and is linked here. The song, I wrote, and the recording is of my grandaughter Nicole and I. The artwork was done by my grandson Salim.

(BTW, the weird crusty, crackling part in the middle is when I ask the kids to make the sound of a spider walking up a palm tree) Some years ago I asked my son Jamal to translate the song into Spanish, and what he produced far exceeded the original. Apparently, in Latin America, the name for Chlorophytum comosum is Lazo de amor, a ribbon of love. In Jamal’s version,  a ribbon is vaulted aloft in the air by a wind, and is tangled in the leaves of a palm tree. So wonderful was this experience that the ribbon and palm married, and the children that resulted were “lazo de amor”, spider plants. This wonderful song ends with a chorus that says: 

Between the ribbon and palm tree There is a lazo de amor

Between a tree and the earth, There is a lazo de amor

Between the clouds and the treesThere is a lazo de amor

Between me and my mother There is a lazo de amor…..

It is a wonderful thing to think about how many things can be paired in this way ,things held together by un lazo de amor, extending the song to infinity. I stopped singing this song several years back because the fast clip of the spanish verse is daunting for kindergarten kids. But the choro  (the response) at the end is easy:  “Hay un lazo de amor”. I hope they, and you, will try it, and that you will invent new pairings, things held together by “un lazo de amor”.

lazo de amor, written and performed by Jamal
érase-un fino listón que llevado por el viento-
-en las bellas ramas de-una palmera se-enlazó
 
tan a gusto se sentían que-al rato se casaron
y tenemos como resultado-este lazo de-amor
 
entre el listón y la palmera
(hay un lazo de amor)
entre el agua y la tierra
(hay un lazo de amor)
entre el árbol y las nubes
(hay un lazo de amor)
entre yo y mi mamá
hay un lazo de amo o or

Be well, stay well, Mr. Leki

Dear Friends, Normally at this time of year we would be rehearsing with our 1st grade actors to put on the play: The Legend of Snake and Turtle.We found a version of the play performed and filmed and edited by Waters Media Lab students supervised by Julie Peterson and Vicky Mendoza from more than ten years ago.  It was their first time using the technique of “green screen”. These students have now graduated high school! The second clip is the accompanying song with some great stills showing Waters School history. I have been sharing these with the primary grades classes and they are all linked at watersecology.org

Old Waters Media Lab-Two Friends and the Legend of Snake and Turtle

Old Waters Media Lab- Two Friends Song

Enjoy

Mr. Leki

Dear Friends,
I do love the intersection of science and art. I try to lock the two together in my life and teaching. A friend recently introduced me to a remarkable film about the life of a little known, ground breaking artist:  Hilma Af Klindt.  Not only is her art striking and revolutionary for the period, but it reflects the ongoing revelations that were occurring in the natural sciences. Please find time to view this wonderful  film :Beyond the Visible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGw9sAxhXXw

K-5 Ecology Activities!
On line, full time ecology teaching has forced and allowed me to cover new subject areas, to go deeper and further afield. Remember that all past and current lesson plans and links can be accessed at watersecology.org.Here’s a little sampling of what I am doing :In Kindergarten…. we’re mostly singing and story telling. I wish the whole curriculum could be taught in song and story. I’m beginning to tell the story of Snake and Turtle, the history of our school and river. Children this age love visits from animals (stuffed or live!). We learned about cottontail rabbits this past week in the context of winter survival of animals. The visiting rabbit had long conversations with the kids. They came up with names for the 10 bunnies she’s expecting this spring. I told the kids to look for bunny prints in the snow that was predicted that evening. The next day, Ms. Frieswyk told me the kids were shocked that the snow didn’t appear. “Mr. Leki said it would snow!”
In First grade, we continued with our ninth out of eleven trees. Ash. I taught them the song about the 11 neighborhood trees. One mom recognized it as a corrido, a traditional mexican song form that often includes very emotional crying: “So many ash trees are dying!!! Because of a small emerald beetle.” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_yGeLgQa6X-KXDLNzDpgoYsIzU8yjHDFRylO7kJgH8Y/edit?usp=sharingThe kids are doing very well, and take the subject very seriously. I recently posted  a gallery of the trees we’ve covered so far. I spent alot of time on the drawings because 1) I have a lot of time to spend, and 2) I want to model the fact that the drawings can be both science AND art, if we work on it. Check them out.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hxImLBHi-X3iLe75E9R1r94ORuzBl7yh4Z9pXf1r58I/edit?usp=sharing  
Second grade is learning our take on the Yoko Ono song “We’re All Water!”https://docs.google.com/document/d/12b683W8UvfCipiLAXcWiIXekRX8u78GTv2j6dHqvPoI/edit?usp=sharing  
We are focusing right now on the almost magical properties of water, a result of its interesting atomic / molecular configuration.  We did demonstrations of water’s ability to :diffract white light into a rainbow;diffuse dyes and act as a solvent, witnessing Brownian motion;cohesion ~ we floated a paper clip on water showing surface tension;and adhesion ~ water flowing uphill, against gravity, because of its attraction to the tiny fibers in a paper towel, or the microtubule walls (xylem and phloem) in a tree. Here’s Miles running the experiments at home, on his own!

Third grade Mighty Acorns learned about winter survival strategies of plants, bids and other animals (humans!) We looked at track sheets showing many of the animals that are active in the forest in winter.  Animal tracks in winter are also magical in the sense that they open for us a window into the past. We can see where an animal had been and where it was going to, who or what it met up with and what it did! I asked the students to ask their parents to take them to a wild place, after a fresh snowfall, and to find animal tracks that tell a story:Rabbit tracks in the prairie (hop, hop). Coyotes track on intercept course. Rabbit takes evasive course. Both increase their stride. Rabbit tracks disappear! Sprinkles of blood, rabbit fur!. Coyote walks away!I’m happy to share that Oliver and family visited Sauganash and went skating on the slough!

Fourth Grade Mighty Acorns learned how to ID the invasive species European Buckthorn. Ask them about the 6 ways to know Buckthorn. Sadly we won’t be cutting with our students this winter. But, they would still benefit from a visit to Sauganash to seek out this invader and testing your knowledge. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FBh-7kHyOkJffPvqNFrBb5DNmqNx3j-9ze3vNJKJr7E/edit?usp=sharing  

Fifth Grade has used the power of graphing to illustrate an example of Population Dynamics, the effect of interactions of species on population counts. In this case we have compared populations of deer, mountain lions and humans, 1800 – 2000. The graph reveals more than numbers. The data set represent correlations, causal relationships between the species, anddisjuncts, moments when normal patterns are disrupted. They beg explanation. Please ask your fifth grader to explain!https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PKy_GsIUqOl9rI5EOxyY8Xg13-OqMbXZoGIdmTGkjOM/edit?usp=sharing  

Dear Friends,
The seasons are turning. It’s no longer Fall and not yet winter. A week yet to the Winter Solstice. This last week of ecology classes I am going to emphasize song, since song brings us together, even virtually. I hope to plant many earworms that will stay with our students through the break. We have studied so many things these past weeks, on line. The kids are so smart and so dear. I was teaching 2nd grade about  watersheds and how the Chicago river was disconnected from the lake and instead attached to the Desplaines River and Mississippi watershed. We were also talking about the water cycle and how lucky we are that rain water that flows from Chicago to the ocean, picking up a lot of sediment and pollutants, is eventually distilled by solar energy, and returned to us by the clouds. A girl in the class asked, “If the Sun cleans the water by evaporation and distilling, why didn’t it do that when the Chicago River went into Lake Michigan?” Dang! She was listening! Another child asked if a baby skunk could spray their nasty smell. Maybe he was hoping for a baby skunk holiday present. There were a lot of great drawings of our native Turkey, and our endangered native Piping Plover. Remember you can see all lesson plans and  links for each grade level at watersecology.org Thanks to all who contributed to the Waters Today fund raiser and Waters Ecology Program.  One Last way that you could help during this season is to purchase my book: The Fight Between Quiet and Noise. It’s a picture book for people between 3-90+. I had hoped to sell it at the craft fair.  It sells for $10 and all proceeds will go to Waters Ecology Program. Email me to arrange payment and pick up of book. 

In honor of a beloved volunteer of Friends of the Parks, the late Smoky Sakurada, we periodically lift up other committed partners that donate time and commitment to our organization way above and beyond the call of duty.  This year, we send a special shout out to Waters Elementary School Ecology Program Director Pete Leki.  To many communities, Pete is a pillar of support, knowledge and wisdom, and Friends of the Parks is fortunate to be counted amongst them.  A longtime educational partner of Friends of the Parks’ Nature Along the Lake environmental education program, Pete’s experience as an ecology educator and former water works professional, coupled with the genuine love he has for Chicago, makes him a walking library of information about the beauty of our environment and our lakefront.  For many years, he has brought children from his Chicago Public School classroom on our Nature Along the Lake field trips to expose youth to nature and the environment in the outdoor classroom setting of the Montrose natural areas.  His long-time involvement with the program and his generosity make him a treasure; over the past year he played a key support role to FOTP in the midst of staff transition.  He freely shared with new staff from his knowledge of the evolution of the program over the years, the hiking route, and even the trees he likes to point out to his students.  He helped make personal connections via the relationships he has developed with the lead stewards of the natural areas.  He presented a folder of all of his documents collected and saved from the many years of partnering with FOTP. He even led a few field trips as part of training and orientation to help onboard our new director of environmental education.  Pete, we hate to think about how we would have made it through that transition without you.  Thank you for being such a committed friend of Friends of the Parks!

–original link-

Dear Friends, Our students in the 7th and 8th Grade have been engaged in an effort to expand the Montrose Point Dunes Natural Area to provide a safe haven for the endangered Piping Plovers that have nested there for the past two years. We have studied the plovers, watched a documentary, worked at the dune, and remembered our ecology lessons about natural areas being like “islands”. And our students have taken action. Under the guidance of their teachers they have written and sent scores and scores of letters to the Chicago Park District Board, who are deliberating on this proposal.
Tomorrow morning at 11:30 the CPD Board meets on Zoom to take public comment. I will try my best to represent our school, community, and students: their urgency and passion, in my testimony. You can join the meeting at:

https://rebrand.ly/CPDLive_Board_Meeting_12-2-20

Here are my comments:

  Hello. My name is Pete Leki and I am the Director of Ecology programs at Waters Elementary School in Chicago. I want first to commend the CPD and the Natural Areas management groups for the fabulous work you have been doing over the past decade.  I will try to convey to you the sentiments of the 7th and 8th grade classes that have been engaged in advocating for the expansion of the Montrose Point Dune natural Area to accommodate  nesting for Piping Plovers.We have been visiting, working and studying at Montrose Point for more than 20 years. We are greatly invested in securing its health and survival. Our students, in their many messages to the CPD Board express great anxiety that the small enclaves of natural areas that support species like the Piping Plovers  (and many other threatened species) may not be there in the future. Their future. Their future planet may be bereft of the treasures of evolution and biodiversity because we have failed to protect habitat, and halt climate catastrophe. A basic concept of ecology that I teach is that natural areas in our highly developed region act like islands. And we know that islands that are bigger and closer to each other are more likely to sustain biodiversity than islands that are small and farther apart. So we support every effort to expand the “islands”, the natural areas, to improve the odds that diverse life will find refuge there. Montrose Point is a great example of a natural area that is open to the public, and manages to thrive alongside multiple uses. It is a great  bonus for beach goers, cafe diners, and volleyball players to encounter rare wonders of nature on every visit. We ask that you work with the Montrose Point stewards and birding community to guarantee a safe and secure welcome place for the Plovers, and add another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of natural areas that will be needed to sustain biodiversity in our land, into the future.  We will be ready to help.
Below is a link to a video of our students working at Montrose Point

https://vimeo.com/462458571  

Be well, stay well, Mr. Leki

Read more at this link about how Waters Students and local environmentalists are working together to convince the Park District to protect the Piping Plover.