to Download the 2010 Annual Report - Riveredge Nature Center

Our Core:
Environmental Education
River Connection
During the 2009-2010 school year, 585 urban students from 25 classes participated in River
Connection. The program, in partnership with the Urban Ecology Center (UEC) in Milwaukee, uses
the rural Milwaukee River location of Riveredge and the urban Milwaukee River location of Hubbard
Park in Shorewood to teach students the concept of a watershed, animal adaptations, biodiversity and
the role of pollution in the health of a natural freshwater system. An anonymous donor has supported
this program for the past three years, making it possible to pay transportation and staff costs.
Riveredge, Lac Lawrann Conservancy (LLC) and the
West Bend Joint School District
Beginning in fall 2009, we partnered with LLC to deliver Riveredge’s Wisconsin’s Glacial Landscape
school program to all 473 sixth grade students in the West Bend School District. This partnership
was made possible through grants from the West Bend Community Foundation and West Bend
Mutual Insurance Charitable Fund. Our goal is to enable each student in the WB School District to
participate in an environmental education program at LLC or Riveredge once each year.
Art in Nature
Riveredge Art in Nature programs expanded in 2009-2010 thanks to a grant from the
Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary Nohl Fund. In May, we collaborated with
the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend for the second year to deliver four days
of art programs to 262 fourth graders from Milwaukee, Shorewood and West Bend.
The students came to the museum to learn about Wisconsin artists, followed by an
afternoon at Riveredge working with artists to create drawings and sculptures of the
land.
This spring, in cooperation with Artists Working in Education (AWE), 35 students from
the MPS elementary school Oliver Wendell Holmes visited Riveredge and worked
with our naturalists and Kitty Dyble Thompson, a mural artist, to explore the pond and
forest communities. For six weeks in their art classroom, these K-8th grade students
expanded upon their drawings and painted three mural panels. The completed mural
was installed in our Children’s Nature Library in June. A small grant from the Greater
Milwaukee Foundation, in addition to Mary Nohl Funds, supported this project.