At eight-years-old, Alice is already a seasoned volunteer at Tyler Arboretum with an impressive knowledge about moths. Did you know that the Cecropia Moth is the largest moth in Pennsylvania? And that its life span is only about two weeks because it does not have a mouth so it cannot eat or drink?! Also, the male moths’ have feathery antennae because this helps them in the darkness to detect pheromones released by females. Amazing!
Alice likes helping out at Tyler because she likes nature and being outside. And she loves insects (which is apparent by an adorable moth-patterned dress she wears). She learned all about insects from her mom, Jenni, so it is no surprise that the two of them volunteered together last summer at the Pollinator Preserve. Jenni herself is a veteran volunteer at Tyler who has been helping at the Pollinator Preserve, and in other capacities, for about three years. As the old saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
With her impressive proficiency about insects, when volunteering, Alice educates visitors to the Pollinator Preserve about the moths and caterpillars. She especially likes to volunteer when the big caterpillars are there – that’s her favorite part. As she explains, the caterpillars have to eat a lot because they have to get big to make their cocoon. Last year, she cleaned the caterpillar cages and helped put fresh leaves in for them. Her least favorite part of volunteering: cleaning up caterpillar poo (frass). Caterpillars poop a lot, she says, and grimaces!
Volunteers Jenni and Alice with a visitor to the Pollinator Preserve in the summer of 2024.
Alice and her mom share with visitors information about pollinators, stressing that it is important to inform people about pollinators and the plants they need because we do not want pollinators to go extinct, as they help things grow.
In fact, Alice even wrote a newspaper article about pollinators for school! In her article, Alice discussed that some of the challenges pollinators face are pollution, peoples’ use of lawn chemicals, habitat loss (from use of leaf blowers) and invasive species. She and her mom share this information with visitors to the Preserve.
In addition to spreading her expertise about insects, Alice uses her math skills to count the people visiting the Pollinator Preserve to keep track of the number of visitors.
When Alice and Jenni are not volunteering together, Jenni spends time at Tyler helping out as an educator on school field trips and doing the story walks. Jenni actually grew up in a state park in New York with a very nature-centric family, and so her love for nature and the outdoors has stayed with her into adulthood. Jenni worked as a teacher for a number of years – though surprisingly, she did not teach science! She taught high-school social studies. When she and her family (which includes her husband and Alice’s nine-year-old brother, Henry, who also loves nature), moved to the area, they started coming to Tyler when Alice and Henry were babies. They’ve been hiking at Tyler since the kids could walk. Jenni decided to start volunteering as a way to give back to the community.
The Pollinator Preserve is lucky to have such a well-informed duo in Alice and Jenni! They both look forward to volunteering there again this summer (but not to cleaning up the frass ☺).
