Seeing more as an ecologist
The idea of ecology is now a common concept. In the early nineteen hundreds it was a new science taught by Henry Cowles and studied by May Watts during her summer classes at the University of Chicago. Watts and the majority of her summer classmates were teachers who worked in the winter and studied for their degrees in the summer. Summer classes were bound to the local landscapes; to places that could be easily reached by train. This was the foundation for Watts' study, description and seeing of ecology in ordinary places.
Just as a landscape's past shapes its future, Watts' life was a series of interconnected events with an ecological theme. There was the prosperous time of living in Chicago's North Shore Ravinia where she urged her "city-dweller" neighbors to embrace the native plants and trees. This was followed by productive years as a working naturalist; giving lectures, writing newspaper articles and, producing pamphlets to promote the responsible stewardship of the environment. It was during this time that Watts published Reading the Landscape: An Adventure in Ecology; a work of astonishing vision and importance in the field of ecology.
Just as a landscape's past shapes its future, Watts' life was a series of interconnected events with an ecological theme. There was the prosperous time of living in Chicago's North Shore Ravinia where she urged her "city-dweller" neighbors to embrace the native plants and trees. This was followed by productive years as a working naturalist; giving lectures, writing newspaper articles and, producing pamphlets to promote the responsible stewardship of the environment. It was during this time that Watts published Reading the Landscape: An Adventure in Ecology; a work of astonishing vision and importance in the field of ecology.
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