Peabody Park Across the Curriculum

PEABODY PARK was established in 1901 as UNCG’s educational park, and it has served the academic and recreational interests of the institution for nearly a century. While faculty in the sciences—especially biology and geography—have made use of the Park’s educational resources for decades, faculty members in other departments may not realize that there are many ways they can make use of the Park in their teaching. This page presents a collection of ideas on how the Park may be incorporated into teaching across the campus in ways that are expected and ways that are surprising.

Because the Departments of Biology and Geography already make extensive use of the Park in their teaching, specific recommendations for those two departments are not included here. All other departments are listed alphabetically. General information about the Park that will be helpful in preparing class exercises is available on the Peabody Park page and its seasonal attachments, and specific information about the animals and plants of the Park is available on the Biological Survey page.

African-American Studies

• George Foster Peabody, who established Peabody Park, was a prominent educational philanthropist who had a special interest in the education of women and minorities. For many years he was a trustee of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute and also of the Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, where he established the Peabody Collection of African American literature, one of the best collections of its kind in the country.

• Individual and racial variation is a phenomenon found throughout the biological world, and is in no way unique to human beings. Students can appreciate the ubiquity of variation by examining plants and animals in Peabody Park.

Anthropology

• The Peabody Park woods are a fragment of the environment that Native American populations lived in for centuries before the arrival of Europeans. They constructed their society from the materials available in this environment.

• The contrast between the Park’s woods and fields illustrates changing patterns of land use over the past several centuries and the arrival of European plant species.

• Students, faculty, and staff could be surveyed concerning their attitudes toward various environmental issues, and then taught about the Park, and surveyed again.

• Populational variation is a fundamental biological phenomenon that can easily be studied with the animals and plants of the Park.

• The impact of humans on the environment is quite conspicuous in Peabody Park, and campus environmental issues can be examined in global contexts.

• The study of “folk taxonomy” is a well-known branch of anthropological psychology, and many experiments and observational exercises could be devised to study this subject in Peabody Park.

Archeology

• There may be a Civil War campsite in Peabody Park—at least one Civil War artifact has been found there. Other sites suitable for historical archeology exist in the Park.

• Basic characteristics of different soil types can be studied in the Park.

• Students can study the varying growth rates of trees and see how this forms the basis of dendrochronology.

Art

• Opportunities are almost unlimited for painting, photography, sculpture, and all other forms of representational art. Natural shapes, colors, textures, and patterns are present at all times of year and are ever changing.

• Natural materials—collected sparingly so as not to damage the environment—are available throughout the Park, from fibers to pigments to leaves to clay to stones to dried plants to bark.

• As Professor Melville Fort wrote in 1902 shortly after the Park was established, “If the mission of art is to cultivate the power to perceive and to appreciate the beautiful, and, if nature is the source of all art, can there be found a more natural or a more pleasing method of cultivating this power than to lead the student into the beauties of nature? With art as our schoolmistress, then we shall find a fitting school-room in our Educational Park.”

Broadcasting, Cinema, and Theater

• The Peabody Awards given by the University of Georgia are among of the most prestigious awards in the field of broadcasting and journalism. They are named for George Foster Peabody, the same person who established Peabody Park on our campus in 1901.

• The Peabody Park amphitheater is a magnificent site for any kind of outdoor performance. No theater student at UNCG should graduate without having worked in the Park amphitheater.

• Peabody Park is an ideal site for on-location filming that requires an outdoor setting—woods, water, open fields, all these are available.

• Film students can appreciate the qualities of natural light in the Park across the day and through the seasons and see how it can be used to good effect.

• Excellent opportunities exist for documentary film-making of many kinds in the Park, from natural history, to local and institutional history, to pollution and other environmental issues.

Business and Economics

• The words “Ecology” and “Economy” have the same root, so it isn’t surprising that there are many parallels between what has for centuries been called “the economy of nature” and the world of business and economics.

• George Foster Peabody, who established Peabody Park in 1901, and his relative George Peabody, were among the most prominent financiers and philanthropists of their day. The impact their wealth had on American society is still felt today at educational institutions all across the country.

• Basic principles of competition, cooperation, division of labor, resource use, etc., are as fundamental to biology as they are to economics, and can easily be illustrated in Peabody Park.

• Students can discuss principles of environmental economics that are much talked about today, such as full cost accounting, “envirionmental capital,” sustainability, “the tragedy of the commons,” etc.

• Issues of property valuation, property law, land use, environmental regulations, pollution costs, etc., can be discussed in the context of an educational park and a university setting.

Chemistry

• Opportunities abound for studies of air, water, and soil chemistry, as well as the biochemistry of plants and animals (sparingly sampled so as not to damage the environment).

• Nutrient cycling is a basic phenomenon of every ecosystem and can easily be illustrated in Peabody Park.

• Chemistry students and faculty can make a very important contribution to the health of the Park by collecting long-term information on water quality in the branches of Buffalo Creek that flow through the Park.

Classical Studies

• The Peabody Park amphitheater is an ideal location to put on a Greek or Roman play!

• The scientific names of animals and plants are almost all based on Classical roots. See the Peabody Park Biological Survey for an endless source of etymological enjoyment.

Curriculum and Instruction

• All future school teachers should be familiar with state requirements for environmental education, and there is no better place to learn about the local environment and to develop and test school curricula than right on the UNCG campus in Peabody Park.

Dance

• As with all performance departments, the Peabody Park amphitheater is well suited to outdoor dance events that can be staged in its lovely natural setting.

• The study of animal movements and plant forms studied in Peabody Park can be the basis for innovative dance techniques.

English

• Nature writing has always been an important genre of literature. Students could easily be given writing or reading assignments that relate to Peabody Park.

• Much literature cannot be understood without some knowledge of the natural references it contains, knowledge that can be gained in Peabody Park.

Exercise and Sport Science

• Peabody Park has been a campus focal point for outdoor exercise since the campus “walking period” was established in the early 1900s. The Peabody Park golf course, constructed in 1954, serves to this day as an important site of campus recreation.

History

• President McIver’s original plan for Peabody Park included the placement of historical markers to tell the story of North Carolina education, but his early death prevented this plan from being carried out. Many specialized topics in history can be easily illustrated in the Park nevertheless.

• Peabody Park is one of many examples of philanthropy that American educators have benefitted from, and the Peabody family has been a prominent one in American financial and educational history.

• The Park figures prominently in the history of the University, and every UNCG student should know that history.

• When Greensboro was occupied by Union forces at the close of the Civil War, the troops camped somewhere in the vicinity of the Park, and at least one Civil War artifact has been found in the Park.

• The history of the environmental movement can be taught with reference to T. Gilbert Pearson, who taught here when the Park was established and went on to become one of the founders of the National Audubon Society and one of the most prominent conservationists of his generation.

• The history of land use in America can be illustrated by the contrast between the Park woods and the Park fields, and by the reckless destruction of more and more sections of the Park as the University has expanded.

Housing and Interior Design

• Many design subjects can be studied in the Park including natural materials for building, natural landscaping and native plants, the importance of green space, etc. The Park can also be used as a case study in (not very good) environmental design.

Human Development and Family Studies

• Peabody Park can be used to illustrate and investigate the importance of outdoor experiences for child development.

Library and Information Studies

• Every school library should have a local history and environment collection, as well as a collection of local natural history specimens, and library students can learn how to develop such collections using the campus and Peabody Park.

Mathematics

• Mathematical phenomena abound in nature, and a great variety of them can easily be found in Peabody Park. From the equations that define the spirals of a pine cone or a snail shell to whole regions of statistics that have been developed to study biological populations, an entire math course could be taught in the Park using natural examples.

Music

• As with all the performance departments listed above, the Peabody Park amphitheater is a magnificent setting for outdoor concerts.

• Nature invented music long before people did, from the percussive drumming of woodpeckers defining their territories, to the bubbling sounds of Buffalo Creek, to the flute-like tones of the thrushes, all of which can be heard in Peabody Park.

Nursing

• The health benefits of outdoor recreation and of time spent in natural settings can be illustrated and studied right on the campus in Peabody Park.

Nutrition and Foodservice Systems

• Peabody Park is an ideal site for a community garden to teach about the benefits of organically-grown produce, etc.

Philosophy

• Philosophical issues relating to the environment are attracting increasing attention within academic philosophy. Environmental ethics and animal rights, for example, could be discussed in the context of Peabody Park, as well as issues of aesthetics.

• Many basic phenomena of natural history that can be seen in the Park have generated some of the longest-standing problems in philosophy of science, from essentialism and the nature of species, to the problem of individual identity, to the historicity of life. Students of the philosophy of science can encounter the sources of these problems right on campus in Peabody Park.

Physics and Astronomy

• As a relatively dark area on campus, the Peabody Park fields offer a good location for night sky observing. Students and faculty could work with the city and the University to eliminate or shade surrounding lights to decrease light pollution improve observing conditions.

• The physical environment of the Park offers a wide range of phenomena for study, such as the fluid dynamics of streams. Similarly, the animals and plants of the Park offer many opportunities for the study of biomechanics of plants and animals, the properties of natural materials, acoustics, etc.

Political Science

• Peabody Park, its management (or lack thereof), and its relation to the local neighborhood and the University, all present a broad field for the study of environmental law (is it legal to discharge chlorinated water into a stream?), natural resource policy, “the tragedy of the commons,” and many other principles of environmental politics. Local politics and government in their raw and ugly form can be readily investigated through study of Park mismanagement.

Psychology

• Psychology faculty have used Peabody Park as a place to study animal behavior for many years, and Dr. Cheryl Logan’s many publications on the behavior of Mockingbirds have been based in part on research that has been done in Peabody Park.

• Many questions of interest to psychologists and geographers involving spatial perception and memory, mental maps, etc., could easily be studied by students using Peabody Park as an area of inquiry.

• The study of “folk taxonomy” is a well-known branch of anthropological psychology, and many experiments and observational exercises could be devised to study this subject in Peabody Park.

Public Health

• Many subjects relating to public health can be studied in Peabody Park, from the effect of pollutants and water contamination to the health benefits of time spent in natural spaces (an active area of research today in public health circles).

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism

• Peabody Park should figure prominently in the curriculum of this department, where it can be used to teach principles of environmental education, responsible golf course management, therapeutic recreation, etc.

Religious Studies

• The environment has played many different roles in different religious traditions around the world, from a thing to be worshipped to a thing to be subdued. Students of religion can consider these different attitudes in the context of Peabody Park.

• Biological phenomena such as adaptation were the building blocks of Natural Theology through the 17th and 18th centuries, and their reinterpretation in an evolutionary context in the 19th century led to one of the great historical conflicts between religion and science. Students of religion can understand and observe these phenomena directly in Peabody Park.

Sociology

• Many opportunities exist to study the relationships between campus and neighborhood residents and the local environment, social attitudes toward nature, etc.

• The population pressure on Peabody Park is a microcosm of environmental problems around the world.

Textile Products

• Peabody Park can be a rich source of inspiration regarding natural colors, textures, patterns, and fibers, all of which can feature in textile design. How about cloth patterned like sycamore bark or like a fern frond, or naturally dyed with the pigments of the strange mushroom called a “dye ball” or the tannins of oak apples?

University Studies

• All beginning students at UNCG should be introduced to Peabody Park, its history, its natural inhabitants, and its role in the life of the University for the last 100 years. A tour of the Park should be a standard part of all orientation courses, and students should be quizzed on Park facts available on the Peabody Park website.

Women’s Studies

• Women have played an important role in the environmental movement throughout its history. It is not coincidental that T. Gilbert Pearson’s Audubon Society was founded at UNCG, as one of the first main Audubon causes was to encourage women not to wear bird feathers as ornamentation.