Space for Everyone
Friends School of Atlanta Frog Song Collaboration
FSA students’ creativity, resiliency, and trauma
This spring, Friends School of Atlanta (FSA) 4th graders did a unit on amphibians with my book Frog Song (2023) as a study guide. Their teacher Joanna Gerber had the privilege to meet the star of Frog Song, Toughie—a rare treefrog who lived at Atlanta Botanical Garden from the time of his rescue in 2005 to his death in 2016. Thus, the students have an intimate connection with his story through Ms. Gerber and their community at large. They contributed their drawings of new frogs and worlds they imagine to the Frog Song gallery.
A World with Enough Space for Everyone by Lana, Age 9
A few FSA students included bridges in their worlds and offered reflections on what bridges represent. Their work inspired me to produce a short film “We Can Be Their Bridges: On Befriending Amphibians” with supporting content on how humans are being bridges for amphibians facing physical obstacles complicated by changing precipitation patterns. The collaboration is an example of how we can be bridges for one another while turning our attention toward amphibians and other threatened groups that desperately need humans to cooperate with one another and them.
“I imagine a world with enough space for everyone.”
—Lana, Age 9
FSA students are members of a community conflicted over the potential destruction of urban forest—one of the win-win solutions included in Frog Song for which Atlanta, “city in the forest,” is known. Among many distant atrocities, they have witnessed the killing of a young adult, Manuel Esteban Páez Terán (known as “Tortuguita”), who stood for the South River Forest of Atlanta and mutual aid across the board. The students are creative and resilient though undoubtedly traumatized by these events. They have their imaginations and their voices yet are without official vote on matters that concern them but through adults they touch.
The students have touched me deeply with their talent, insight, gratitude, and eagerness to learn. Ms. Gerber and I are continuing the Frog Song collaboration with a focus on aquatic habitat and tree rearing for the urban forest. I hope the students’ efforts touch you that we might be their bridges together if from afar. That to the best of our abilities, we will show them how to make fitting space for everyone without delay.
“Only through the combined efforts of all stakeholders working at different levels, from high-level policy reforms to local grassroots projects will rivers and wetlands be revived and conserved.”
Freshwater Challenge ∣ Frontlines of the climate and nature crises
We Can Be Their Bridges: Seasonal Pools & Climate
A short film featuring Friend School of Atlanta student illustrations with supporting content in celebration of PARC Amphibian Week and Teacher Appreciation Week 2024. Many thanks to CIIS Arts in Context teacher George Reyes, FSA students, their teachers Joanna Gerber and John Grijak, and Mark and Crystal Mandica (Amphibian Foundation) for connecting us and supporting Frog Song from the start.
International Petition Filed on Behalf of Tortuguita
Breaking Green Podcast Episode with Anthony Enriqez of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
On January 18, 2023, Manuel Esteban Páez Terán (known as “Tortuguita”) was killed by police in Atlanta, Georgia while standing for the South River Forest. Forensic evidence strongly suggests that Tortuguita was sitting peacefully cross-legged with his hands in the air when he was killed. In this May 28, 2024 Global Justice Ecology Project Breaking Green podcast episode, host Steve Taylor and attorney Anthony Enriqez of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights discuss a spring 2024 petition for an investigation, efforts to protect the South River Forest, criminalization of peaceful forest protectors, human rights violations in Tortuguita’s case, and international human rights mechanisms and accountability.
Generation Restoration: Tree by Tree
Andreas Kornevall on the School Tree Nursery Programme / Resurgence Magazine
2021–2030 is the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and FSA elementary students are among the youngest members of “generation restoration” blessed to be supported by their teachers. Older members of this generation are responsible for helping students participate in restoration efforts while reducing their present and future workload through protecting intact ecological communities. Andreas Kornevall is devoted to supporting students through the School Tree Nursery Programme of his Earth Restoration Service project. In this article for Resurgence Magazine, Kornevall reflects on the beginnings of the tree nursery programme, which now includes 400 schools in the UK and schools in other countries, including India, Ecuador, and Tanzania.
“We should remind ourselves that trees and truth have the same etymological base: they are united at the root.”
Andreas Kornevall ∣ Director of Operations for the Earth Restoration Service
"In addition to environmental science, policy, law, economics, and technology, a robust shift of values and culture is needed for systemic long-term change."
Ecological Civilization | Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
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