Hackley Review Summer 2012: Hackley Forest

Feature
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Into the Woods
Hackley’s Year of the Forest
By Kevin Rea
“The forests are the flags of Nature. They appeal to all and awaken
inspiring universal feelings. Enter the forest and the boundaries of
nations are forgotten. It may be that some time an immortal pine
will be the flag of a united and peaceful world.”
–enos a. mills, government lecturer on forestry for Teddy Roosevelt
and “FATHER of Rocky Mountain National Park.”
We have all heard the expression, “not seeing the
forest for the trees.” This cliché implies an essential
truth about human nature: we need to vary our focus
between looking at the big and the little pictures.
When it comes to outdoor learning, I am pleased to
report that, in the last year, Hackley has done both
by launching or consolidating several initiatives with
direct links to our forest as an educative space. We
have spent time looking at both the forest and the
trees. Our students of literature have long learned
about the importance of forests. Imagery of woods
runs through the heart of the American literary
landscape. Our eleventh graders, for example, learn
from reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet
Letter how an individual comes to terms with his or
her own depths within a dark forest. Emerson notes,
“In the woods, we return to reason and faith.” Robert
Frost, in his poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening” positions the forest at the center of life’s
deepest choices. In the poem the snowy solitude of
the woods removes the protagonist from the road, the
locus of “progress” and “effort.” One senses that, in
Frost’s poem, the forest is a deeply significant part
of the protagonist’s ability to collect his or her self, to
be reflective, and to live a fully human life. This year
Hackley’s forest truly arrived as a place for experiential,
interdisciplinary learning, and our community
is very excited to be heading out into the woods on
a more regular basis. It is entirely fitting that this
growth has occurred during the U.N.’s International
Year of the Forests.
Literally the biggest development over the last year
has been the erection of a two acre Deer Exclusion
Zone to the right of Alumni Drive. Connecting on
and off campus experts, Hackley assembled a faculty
Forestry Management Committee who consulted
with Ted Kozlowski, Chief Forester for Westchester
County’s Department of Parks, Recreation and
Conservation. This committee visited Lasdon Park
& Arboretum to observe their deer exclusion zone. It
also welcomed Ted on several occasions for narrated
walks through our woods and to advise on the place-

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Upper School students inside the Deer Exclusion Zone.
ment of the deer exclusion zone. The Buildings
and Grounds Committee of the Board of Trustees
reviewed and approved the proposed zone at a
meeting in the autumn. For those of you wondering
exactly what a deer exclusion zone is, it is a high
fence (8 feet) erected around an area of the forest
which prevents the deer from grazing (and therefore
eating) the vegetation. As a result of this “exclusion,”
the forest regenerates over time. Ted observes that
in approximately two years our students and faculty
will notice the beginnings of a dramatic rebirth, the
results of which will serve as an invaluable teaching
resource about forest depletion, native versus non
native plant species and deer management techniques.
In commenting on the deer exclusion zone,
Ted writes:
I feel that our suburban forests are under siege from
many influences generated by human activities both
intentional and unintentional. Climate change,
ecosystem disruptions, invasive plants, deer browsing,
pollution, and neglect have created a dire situation
within our native forests. They simply are not regenerating.
The real challenge here is one of education. Today
our young people are growing up believing that the forest
they see outside their window is static. Sadly, teaching
about forest ecology takes a back seat in many school
systems today. The hope lies with dedicated teachers
such as the wonderful people at Hackley School who are
taking these challenges and using them as teaching tools
for their students in the hope of instilling a new motivation
in this field. The deer exclusion fence is a great
teaching tool as it will generate immediate results in how
a forest responds when people take action. A forest naturally
regenerating itself is a beautiful thing to see, and it
can be witnessed by the students as they advance through
their years at Hackley. The results will astound.
As a result of the close connections inspired by this
project, Ted Kozslowski returned to the Hilltop with
Dan Aitchison from Westchester Parks Conservation
Division, and the two delivered this year’s endowed
Szabo lecture to our Upper School on forestry and
conservation in the region.

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Upper School Science students learn about Hackley’s forest from forestry experts Ted Kozlowski and Dan Aitchison.
Outdoor learning takes many forms, but, as our
faculty will tell you, it helps to have an identifiable
teaching space in which to work. Another outdoor
innovation is the creation of Hackley’s new Outdoor
Classroom. It sits adjacent to the Deer Exclusion Zone
and “Spring Peeper Pond.” Originally a joint initiative
by the English and Science departments, the Outdoor
Classroom now provides a picturesque setting for
poetry readings, science discussions and more in the
middle of the forest. Students in Spanish 4 classes
have enjoyed learning outdoors in the autumn during
which they conversed about the forest. After writing
compositions based on outdoor classroom lessons,
they studied photographs by Robert Glenn Ketchum
and wrote descriptions of his magnificent images
in the book The Hudson River and the Highlands. As
a year round learning space the classroom provides
students the chance to see the red and yellow hues
of autumnal sugar maples, the ice covered logs and
snow in the winter as well as the blooming flowers
and plants in the spring. Students and faculty are
rediscovering the natural rhythms of the seasons as
they watch them through a variety of academic lenses.
Renowned wildlife tracker Susan Morse from
Keeping Track added to our students’ sense that the
forest is alive. Visiting as part of the Upper School’s
Earth Day activities this April, she spoke to our
Ecology classes about the role and importance of
predators in our forests (both native mammals and
humans). In addition, she led two field trips into our
woods. In her first field trip she pointed out non-vocal
animal communication and signs, and in her second
trip she helped students and faculty get a sense of the
human impact on the forest, its history, and a broader
understanding of general forest ecology issues.
Susan is writing a summary of her brief survey of our
woods, pointing out how we can improve our woods
for native wildlife. Our Science Department hopes to
use this as a supplemental text with our Ecology class.
Susan was most impressed with our deer exclusion
zone which she thought was the best educational tool
in our forest.
Our Science Department is leading the way with
linking the forest to curriculum by bringing students
in the Lower, Middle and Upper Divisions outdoors
to engage in a variety of studies. Students in Tessa
Johnson’s Advanced Forest Ecology Research (AFER)
classes actively learn from the forest. Andy Retzloff’s
Biology classes also head outdoors frequently. Other
Science classes in grades 5-7 enjoy opportunities to
get outdoors. The AFER classes made a field notebook
that has over one hundred species in it of organisms
seen in our forest. These are extraordinary notebooks
about which the students are most proud by the end

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Clockwise from above: An Upper School class in the
outdoor classroom. One of the educational signs in
Hackley’s forest. Mr. Retz and pal—the “scarecrow”
actually serves as a feeder for birds, who gradually
learn to trust the human form and come to feed from
students’ hands.
of the course. The most popular study is the salamander
study begun in the fall of 2009. Students
then placed one hundred boards in an area 10m by
100m. Every spring and fall these boards are checked
as least twice a month for salamanders. The species
of salamanders are identified and measured. If they
are red back salamanders, students determine what
color morph they are—red back or lead back. The last
two years the AFER classes have worked with the
kindergarten classes by giving them a presentation
that includes an introduction to the forest. These
same students also take our Lower School students
out and teach them how to participate in the study.
This year we have begun to lay out boards in the deer
exclusion zone adjacent to the current area of study.
In the future classes will have fifty boards out with
another fifty planned soon thereafter. The department
hopes to compare the abundance of salamanders
inside and outside the deer exclusion zone. Students
also measure water quality in the spring time. Deer
Pond and Peeper Pond are sampled twice a month.
Students measure, circumference, depth, temperature,
pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrate and alkalinity.
The Science department has also established a bird
feeding station. Here our students count the total
number of each species of birds seen at one time in
rain, snow or sun. Students are currently monitoring
“Getting the opportunity to regularly engage
with and learn about our natural resources
has been a really great opportunity for me this
past year. The hands on learning we’ve done
is unparalleled and invaluable.”
—A.L. Schwalb, Class of 2012
“Being in the woods is both physically eye
opening to see all of the birds that fly around
but it’s also emotionally eye opening to just
think that a few yards from that classroom
is a whole new world where something new
is discovered every day.”
—Alex Katsihtis, Class of 2013
“I am a senior, and before this year I had never
even been in the Hackley woods before. To
go out into the woods is such an amazing thing
that Hackley has to offer, and has been such
a learning experience.”
—Ali Kaminetsky, Class of 2012

Feature
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A Hackley trail marker.
Right: Middle School students
at Deer Pond.
bluebird nest boxes nearby. By the time this Hackley
Review is published, the Science Department is planning
to have erected nature trail information signs on
the Carl Buessow nature trail. These signs were originally
created as a senior project. The department has
also begun working closely with the Math department
and our Statistics students to analyze the data being
collected in the forest. Active forest visits also extend
to our Middle School students. The fifth grade begins
their science year learning to identify tree species on
campus, along with a little of their natural history and
ecology. For several years they have celebrated Earth
Day by planting their own conifer trees on campus.
This year they planted White Spruce trees, as we were
finding that the White Pine we usually plant were
being eaten by our ever expanding deer population.
Many fifth and sixth grade students also participant in
the popular “ASK” (After School Knowledge) nature
program where the theme is getting the kids into the
Hackley woods for exploration and, just as important,
play. Lower School students also head outdoors,
accompanied by our Upper Schoolers as part of
their Ecology class. Members of our Upper School
Hackley Earth Action League (HEAL) also led many
workshops on climate change awareness this year.
One of the areas of focus was on deforestation.
This focus on forestry and outdoor education
occurs at an exciting time with Hackley’s acceptance
as a Regional Member of Round Square
(www.roundsquare.org). One of the “Six Ideals” of
Round Square is focus on the Environment. The
Round Square website states that at Round Square
schools “students are taught the fine balance and
the interdependence needed to maintain a healthy
relationship between human beings and the planet.
Special programs, work projects and curricula all
emphasize each young person’s destiny to be a
guardian of human society and the global environment.”
The growing interest in our forest is part of
the evolving ways we prepare students to face the
challenges of a globally interconnected world in this
young century. The Community Studies Department,
a new academic department launched in the
2011–2012 academic year, has kept the forest firmly

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Above: Andy Retzloff works with Middle School students at Deer Pond.
Below: Deer Exclusion fence.
in its sights as it plans future academic course offerings.
It recently introduced a new elective focusing
on water and environmental education. “Water
Works” is a course that is open to all Upper School
students and which finds a home in the departments
of Community Studies, Science and English. It will
introduce our students to experiential learning about
the planet’s resources including water and trees.
Our forest is deeply linked to Hackley’s educational
mission, and the increasing interest in interdisciplinary
studies, environmental awareness,
international engagement, service, democracy, adventure
and leadership remind us that the way students
learn is continuing to change to embrace an active,
experiential component. The road less travelled has
become much more significant (and well travelled)
as Hackley prepares students to live independently
in the world.
Kevin Rea is an Assistant Headmaster at Hackley
and Chair of the newly created Community
Studies Department.