Next Freshkills Park Talk: Tuesday, June 14th
photo by Nathan Kensinger
The Freshkills Park Talks lecture series continues next Tuesday with a presentation by elementary school science teacher Howard Warren. Out of sheer interest and commitment, Howard has become one of the City’s leading experts on the history and present condition of Barren Island and Dead Horse Bay, at the southeastern corner of Brooklyn. The area is well known by urban explorers for its ‘Bottle Beach’, where a 1950s landfill continues to spill its contents onto the shore to be combed over by amateur archeologists. But the island and the bay’s storis stretch much farther into the past of industrial Brooklyn than just the 1950s, and its current state is the object of ongoing discussions on ecological health and restoration. Howard has been bringing his students to study beach and the bay for over 20 years and has integrated its study in a variety of engaging environmental curricula, bringing students and their parents to the site to clean up the shore, collect fish for study, test the water chemistry and study artifacts. He’ll discuss the site’s history and politics and share lessons learned through long-term, collaborative investigation of the site and its secrets.
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 | 6:30-8pm
@ the Metropolitan Exchange
33 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn | 6th floor
FREE | No RSVP necessary
