Students across New York City are visiting Freshkills Park to collect data on invasive species and take action to protect this reclaimed ecosystem.

There is a newcomer to the grasslands and wetlands in Freshkills Park: spotted lanternflies, an invasive species that can wreak havoc on trees and other plants.

Have you ever wondered why animals act a certain way? At Freshkills Park, researchers use ethograms to learn more about animals like osprey. In this week’s STEAM @ Home challenge, learn more about your pet, neighborhood birds, or even a mosquito through observing and recording their behavior with an ethogram.

As Freshkills Park undergoes its long transformation from landfill to public greenspace, access remains limited and it can be challenging to convey to the public all of the things going on inside the park’s boundaries. The Freshkills Park Development team has created an interactive map to serve as a virtual tour of the park project.

It was yet another busy fall at Freshkills Park this year, with a number of park developments, programs, and events serving as a reminder of the radical transformation that continues to occur at what was once the world’s largest landfill.

Discovery Day

On September 15^th, over one thousand visitors flocked to Freshkills for its annual Discovery Day, in which several hundred acres were open for hands-on arts and STEM activities, kite-flying, biking, and free exploration.

With temperatures climbing into the 80s this weekend, over one thousand visitors flocked to Freshkills Park for a warm edition of Discovery Day, a chance to experience the world’s largest landfill-to-park project as it continues to undergo development. Though the park is normally closed, events such as Discovery Day give visitors a chance to see what this former waste dump now has to offer in the way of passive and active recreation, wildlife habitat, and innovative engineering.

This week marks the beginning of a new collaboration between Freshkills Park and New Ventures Charter School. For the next twelve weeks, students from New Ventures will report to Freshkills Park four days per week, two and a half hours per day, for environmental science lessons, hands-on fieldwork projects, art activities, and other curricula that tie into their graduation requirements.

Fastnet: Plein-Air Drawing at Freshkills Park is an exhibition of plein-air drawings and ink studies of Freshkills Park that were produced through a series of workshops held within a 20-foot shipping container called Fastnet. The exhibition will be on display at the Arsenal Galley in Central Park from September 13th – November 14th. 

This year, artists are leading drawing workshops inside a shipping container at Freshkills Park. Fastnet was purchased by artist James Powers in 2015. Since then, it has been used as a gallery, sauna, and gathering space. At Freshkills Park, Fastnet is fitted with drawing horses for free observational drawing workshops, available for the general public!

In a collaborative effort, Freshkills Park, Parsons School of Design, and Arable Labs are collecting environmental data at the landfill-to-park project and interpreting that information for artistic pursuits and public education. The transdisciplinary “Sound the Mound” project uses remote sensing and GIS technologies developed by Arable Labs to create a sonic engagement that provides both land and data readings such as rainfall, microclimate, and sunlight within the evolving ecology of Freshkills Park.

What better way to explore Freshkills Park than with an artist-led drawing workshop in a shipping container?

Freshkills Park is currently home to Fastnet, a shipping container converted into a studio and project space. The container was purchased by artist James Powers in 2015.

This spring, students from Gaynor McCown Expeditionary Learning School are visiting Freshkills Park for outdoor observational drawing workshops in Fastnet, a shipping container converted into a studio and project space. Artist James Powers purchased Fastnet in the fall of 2015. Here he reflects on “the thrill of drawing outside” and how he learned to think of the landscape “as an extension of the studio.”

The Freshkills Park development team is seeking a motivated and energetic candidate to manage, develop and deliver the educational programming for Freshkills Park and to oversee our growing volunteer program. This position requires working at both 100 Gold Street in Manhattan and Freshkills Park in Staten Island.

This spring, Freshkills Park will be home to a shipping container converted into a studio and project space. The container, known as Fastnet, will be fitted with desks and chairs to accommodate outdoor observational drawing workshops, primarily for high school students.

In November of 2017, Freshkills Park celebrated the groundbreaking at North Park. The event signaled the start of construction on the 21-acre project, which will be the first section inside the Fresh Kills Landfill boundaries to become public parkland. This milestone was possible thanks in part to the growing community that is engaging with the project and participating in scheduled programs. 

We are now scheduling field trips to Freshkills Park for April and May! These trips are designed to help middle and high school students connect to Freshkills Park through guided walks and interactive activities.

Educators can choose from one of two themed field trips:

Wetland Ecology

• This trip provides an introduction to how creek-side ecosystems have transformed alongside the landfill to park project.

This past year marked the fifteen-year anniversary of the Fresh Kills Landfill closure. In March of 2001, the final barge of household garbage arrived at the landfill. Later that year, the City of New York announced an international design competition for the development of a plan for Freshkills Park.

Freshkills Park teamed up with the design studio Partner & Partners to create What is Freshkills?, a fold-out poster pamphlet that illustrates the history, engineering, and ecology of the unique 2,200-acre park in an accessible and easily distributed format.

The Fresh Kills Landfill was the largest landfill in the world before it closed in 2001.

Dear Friends:

This year’s $30 million funding for the Mayor’s Anchor Parks initiative is a wonderful recognition of the progress we’re making as Freshkills Park continues to take shape. The Anchor Parks project, now entering design, will focus on South Park.

Written by Jessa Orluk, Freshkills Park Programming Associate. 

One Wednesday morning this past October, I led a group of ten students down a path next to Freshkills Park’s Main Creek. I talked as we meandered. The walk was meant to orient students to the park’s ecosystem before we returned to the kayak launch.

Written by Jessa Orluk, Freshkills Park Programming Associate.

One hot day this past October, a student told me, “Well, our waste has to go somewhere. It’s selfish, but we don’t want it here. It’s not our problem.”

He was one of 16 high school students on a field trip to Freshkills Park.