Mill Creek Project

Philadelphia Water Department proposes to build a stormwater detention facility (to mitigate combined sewer overflows to the Schuylkill River) on a vacant lot next to Sulzberger Middle School that will also be a wetland, water garden, and outdoor classroom for the school. This represents the fruition of WPLP work since 1987, including three years of designs by Penn and Sulzberger students. After construction, PWD plans to monitor the effectiveness of the project in reducing combined sewer overflows in the Schuylkill River in order to determine the potential of this approach as a local and national model. The City is currently seeking funds for the project.

In Fall 1998, nine students from Professor Spirn's Transforming the Urban Landscape studio started the semester by designing an expansion of the water garden/outdoor classroom at Aspen Farm and went on to design a wetland/water garden/outdoor classroom for a vacant lot next to Sulzberger. The Penn students spent eight afternoons with 64 students in Ms. Hoxter's and Mr. Mells seventh and eighth grade classes to develop ideas for the environmental study area and an associated curriculum. Together, they dissected and analyzed flowers and looked at them under a microscope, studied water flow and water quality, designed water catching apparatus and many other activities. The Sulzberger students also reviewed and critiqued the Penn students' designs for Aspen Farm.

In the Summer of 1998, the SMS / PENN Summer Program returned for its second year. The program increased in size from 12 students during the summer of '97 to about fifty students. Its main purpose was to provide a strong base for the new Environment Small Learning Community which will begin in Fall of 1998. Children attending the program studied a variety of subjects led by West Philadelphia Landscape Project staff and Sulzberger teachers. The SMS teachers involved were Glenn Campbell, Barbara Wells, Larry Jones, Donald Armstead, Crystale Roye, and Erika Stewart. The WPLP staff were Sam Spirn, Danielle Floyd, Kevin Smith, and Kamni Gill. The National School and Community Corps also helped out, and were designated as team leaders for the five different groups of students. They were led by Warren Bell.

The Sulzberger students split the three hour morning between two out of the six subjects - Computers, Conflict Resolution, Aspen Farm Garden, Mill Creek History, Entrepreneur, and Wetlands. In the computer class, the kids learned basic skills in Netscape, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft Word. The Conflict Resolution class taught the kids productive ways to solve conflicts, and was also used as a forum to discuss problems at home. At the Aspen Farm Garden, under the supervision of Hayward Ford, the children from the summer program helped weed, painted fences and clean up the garden. The Mill Creek history section focused on a brief history of the neighborhood, and in the Entrepreneurial section, students learned how to form a business plan. In the Wetlands section, students studied animals and plants which live in wetlands, built models with clay, and visited the John Heinz Refuge.

In spring 1998, thirty-two students in Glenn Campbell's eighth grade class are working with eleven Penn students of Urban Studies 205: "Power of Place: Introduction to Urban Environmental Design." Together they will prepare a map/ guide to stories of Mill creek's past in traces still visible in the landscape and a design and business plan for a miniature golf course that tells stories of Mill Creek's past, present, and future. A miniature golf course on vacant land in the Zone within the Mill Creek "floodplain" to create and sustain new jobs within the community is an idea being considered by Empowerment Zone staff. Penn and Sulzberger students will present their plans to the Empowerment Zone.

In Fall 1997, 32 students from the University of Pennsylvania in Professor Spirn's Transforming the Urban Landscape studio designed a miniature golf course for the Mill Creek community. As part of their introduction to the neighborhood, they went into Ericka Stewart's seventh grade classroom and Glenn Campbell's eighth grade. Penn students introduced a variety of activities in a collaboration that spanned eight weeks: Sulzberger students made maps and drawings of their homes, took photographs of their block, and made models of their visions for the future golf course.

In the summer of 1997, four Sulzberger teachers, two Penn students, Martin Knox and Yu-Ting Lee, and a dozen Sulzberger students continued to develop the Mill Creek Watershed curriculum during a four week long session. The teachers were Barabara Wells, Donald Armstead, Larry Jones and Glenn Campbell. Mr. Campbell was already familiar with the urban watershed themes from the previous school year. Martin and Yu-Ting were previously in Professor Spirn's Fall 1996 "Transforming the Urban Landscape"studio.

Outdoor activities included regular visits to the nearby Aspen Farms Community Garden. There were several construction projects built to serve as an outdoor classroom for a year-round environmental studies program. The projects included installing a small hardshell pond with aquatic plants, a butterfly house at the butterfly garden, and a vegetable plot with a compost bin. (See Sulzberger students' webpage reports.) Hayward Ford, President of Aspen Farms and Jeff Myers of the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society also assisted the students. Many students brought their families to the garden for the first time.

Indoor activities included making a topographical model of the watershed, mapping watersheds, (worksheet) and webpage reports (see SMSnews). The group discussed the value of trees in the city and designed a street tree nursery for their school grounds after a visit from Mindy Maslin of Philadelphia Green.(worksheet) As an exercise in reclaiming vacant land, the group designed proposals for a miniature golf course near their school. Each hole is an illustration of an era in the Mill Creek's history. (worksheet) They went on a field trip to a miniature golf course with an international theme in Rosyln, PA. (worksheet)

In spring 1997, thirty Sulzberger students in Glenn Campbell's eighth grade class worked with Professor Spirn and five Penn students of Urban Studies 320: "Power of Place: Water, Schools, and History." The Penn students shared their reports and primary reference sources addressing the following topics:

• Pre-Colonial, Colonial and Early Industrial.
  
• Census Data; 1860-1990.
  
• Transportation, Land Development and Water Management: 1880-1940.
  
• Urban Redevelopment and the Mill Creek Neighborhood:1930-1975.
  
• Mill Creek in the Edge City Period: Late 1970's - Present.

Special classroom guests included:
Deborah Napper,
West Philadelphia Empowerment Zone;
Rodnie Jamison,
Philadelphia City Planning Commission;
Hayward Ford, President of
Aspen Farms Community Garden

" As they shared knowledge and research methods, both groups of students used cultural exploration to shatter cultural and academic myths and create a powerful partnership across secondary school and university levels."

During the winter of 1996 the students of Daisy Century's science class participated in the 5th annual National Engineers Week Future City Competition. Since the program began in 1992, the purpose of the competition has been to introduce students to engineering through practical applications of math and science and work with engineers.

The team consisted of three Sulzberger students, a licensed civil engineer and Martin Knox, a Penn landscape architecture student. They designed future cities on a computer using Maxis' SimCity Classic© software and used a blueprint to build a model of a section of the created city.

"Silver City" won Best Design at the Philadelphia region competition held at the Franklin Science Institute.

In fall 1996, Professor Spirn and twenty-four graduate students from the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning 601 studio "Transforming the Urban Landscape" worked with four Sulzberger teachers and 130 Sulzberger students: Glenn Campbell's eighth grade; Crystal Roye's eighth grade; Mattie Lloyd's sixth grade; and Joann Shafer's seventh grade. The whole neighborhood was the classroom with the school at the center. At the heart of the story was the Mill Creek, a stream which once flowed across the field where the school playground is now, and still does flow, buried in a sewer which runs right past the school. Working with teachers and students at Sulzberger, the graduate students documented environmental and community history as well as devising designs for the vacant land near the school.

Penn students Martin Knox and Robert Cheetham visited Glenn Campbell's Conflict Resolution program at the local YMCA on several occasions and introduced maps, aerial photographs and watershed concepts.

Aspen Farm Community Garden

Daisy Century's class started a vegetable garden at Aspen Farm Community Garden in 1996 with the help of Rachel Sterling-Boyers and Hayward Ford. Their vegetables won several ribbons at the Fall 1996 Harvest Show, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Work with teachers at Sulzberger is supported by work-study grants from Penn's Center for Community Partnerships. The Urban Watershed Program is supported, in part, by a grant from the Philadelphia Urban Resources Partnership and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.