2022 May 21
MassQ Ball 2022: Origin | Mythmaking Workshop
3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location: 
Bradley Rosaceous Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Led by Castle of our Skins’ Director of Education Taylor Lena McTootle, “Making a Mythos” focuses on the creative power of storytelling. Young participants will experience firsthand how fictional tales can reflect our cultural values and create them.
Appropriate for youth ages 8-12 years old.
Learn more and register.
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2022 May 16
Director’s Series | Life: The Arnold Arboretum as an Institution of Public Health
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Location: 
Arnold Arboretum—Online
The Arnold Arboretum's sesquicentennial Director's Series traces the Arnold’s significance in the landscape architecture movement, value for the people of Boston, and leadership in creating global connections between plants and people.
Panelists include:
• Dr. Michelle Kondo, Research Social Scientist, UDSA-Forest Service

• Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space, City of Boston

• Laurence Cotton, Consulting Producer, “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing...
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2022 May 14
MassQ Ball 2022: Origin | African Folklore Lecture
1:00pm to 2:30pm
Location: 
Arnold Arboretum (Hunnewell Building), 125 Arborway, Boston
Dr. Liseli A. Fitzpatrick, a Trinidadian-scholar in the field of African Diasporic cosmologies and sacred ontologies, will lead an engaging lecture and discussion exploring African mythologies and folkloric cultures.
Learn more and register.
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2022 Apr 30
MassQ Ball 2022: Origin | SOUL: An Ancestor Workshop
1:00pm to 3:00pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Led by poet and Castle of our Skins’ Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative in Residence Marlanda Dekine, this participatory workshop will use writing and meditation to consider how our individual origin stories and ancestries influence our being.
Learn more and register for this event.
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2022 Mar 29
Celebrating a Sesquicentennial: The Founding of the Arnold Arboretum
2:00pm to 3:00pm
Location: 
Livestreamed or at Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St., Boston
The Arnold Arboretum was founded on Friday, March 29, 1872. Exactly 150 years later, we invite you to join Lisa Pearson, Head of the Arboretum Library and Archives, for a special sesquicentennial lecture! Pearson will discuss the earliest benefactors of the Arboretum, the events surrounding the founding of the institution, and the busy first two decades during which the infrastructure and living collections were installed on the grounds.
This event will also be livestreamed to YouTube. To sign up for the virtual livestream instead,...
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2022 Mar 12
Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea
2:30pm to 4:00pm
Location: 
Online or at Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St., Boston
Just in time for the Arboretum's sesquicentennial and the bicentennial of the birth of pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, authors Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr will speak on their recent book, "Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea." They'll offer a new interpretation of how the American park—urban and national—came to figure so prominently in our cultural identity, and why this more complex and inclusive story deserves to be told.
...
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2021 Mar 08
"Every Pecan Tree": Trees, Meaning, and Memory in Enslaved People’s Lives
7:00pm
Location: 
Arnold Arboretum—Online
This is the third lecture in the Arnold Arboretum's 2021 Director's Lecture Series. Tiya Miles takes up the pecan tree as inspiration for exploring the meaning of trees in the lives of enslaved African Americans. Using a family heirloom, slave narratives, oral histories, and missionary records, her talk underscores the importance of trees in the Black experience of captivity and resistance, ultimately revealing the centrality of the natural world to Black, and indeed human, survival.
...
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2021 Mar 06
A History of Path-Making at the Arnold Arboretum
2:00pm
Location: 
Arnold Arboretum—Online
At the time of its founding in 1872, the land on which the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is sighted was a patchwork of farmland and forest. As the Arboretum was planted, pathways were developed to lead people through the picturesque landscape. As the landscape developed, economies shifted, wars took place, and directors changed. Each of these factors subtly influenced shifts in the park’s path system. Join the Arnold Arboretum on Zoom with Jared Rubinstein as he reveals the layers of change in this beloved landscape.
...
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2021 Jan 28
Racial Equity in Urban Climate Action
7:00pm
Location: 
Online—Arnold Arboretum
Joan Fitzgerald, Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at Northeastern University, will build on key concepts in her new book, Greenovation: Urban Leadership on Climate Change (2020). She’ll discuss how cities are rethinking their approach to climate action by placing racial justice at the forefront. She’ll draw from recent experiences with Providence, Austin, and Oakland in creating participatory planning processes and new priorities for a just transition to a carbon-free society. She’ll conclude by discussing how the transition can be linked to jobs in the green economy.
...
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2020 Dec 08
Observations on Urban Nature
6:00pm to 7:30pm
Location: 
Arnold Arboretum—Online
Peter Del Tredici, Senior Research Scientist Emeritus at the Arnold Arboretum, and Rosetta Elkin, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at McGill University, converse about the nature of urban environments. Peter will begin the program with a brief overview of the plant observations he makes in his book, Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast. Following this, Peter and Rosetta will discuss both ecological and design elements that come into play in the cities and suburbs that we call home. Up for discussion are the environments that humans intentionally and unintentionally...
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2020 Sep 25
In Pursuit of Equitable Development: Lessons from Washington, Detroit, and Boston
12:30pm to 4:30pm
Location: 
Online—Harvard Graduate School of Design
In this half-day virtual symposium, leading practitioners and scholars from three cities, Washington, DC, Detroit, and Boston, will explore efforts to bring equitable development to their communities and outline how they are responding to current challenges. The presentations and discussions will help students, scholars, community leaders, public officials, and others identify innovative strategies and successful approaches to advancing social justice in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
Co-sponsored by the Joint Center for Housing...
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2020 Sep 23
Leaving New Orleans: A Personal Urban History
12:00pm
Location: 
Online—Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard
As the Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow, Leslie M. Harris is completing “Leaving New Orleans: A Personal Urban History.” She uses memoir and family, urban, and environmental histories to explore the multiple meanings of New Orleans in the nation, from its founding through its uncertain future amid climate change.
...
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2020 Jun 08
When “Stay at Home” Isn’t Safe: Domestic Violence During COVID-19
1:00pm to 2:00pm
Location: 
Online Event
Although communities have been asked to stay home to stay safe, for many domestic violence victims, home can be a dangerous place. Spikes in intimate partner violence (IPV) and child abuse have been noted across the country and around the world since the onset of the COVID-19 stay-at-home directives as victims and witnesses of IPV and child abuse find themselves isolated within their homes and confronted with difficult decisions about when and how to seek care or shelter. In this Radcliffe webinar, scholars, public officials, community activists, and...
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2019 Nov 06
The Diffusion and Adoption of Welfare-Enhancing Innovations
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location: 
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Todd Rogers is a behavioral scientist and professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Using his two decades of work in behavioral policy as a base, he will discuss his current research into what leads to welfare-enhancing innovations and practices. In particular, he aims to help scholars and practitioners design, identify, and invest in innovations that are likely to successfully scale.
This event is free and open to the public. 
...
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2019 Nov 02
Photography with Chris Morgan
1:00pm to 4:00pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Chris Morgan is fascinated by the patterns and textures in nature, the shapes of trees, and the movements of birds. He captures these beautifully in his photographs, which were on display at the Arnold Arboretum in the winter of 2019.
In this program, Chris will discuss his photographic interests and methods in the classroom and then move outdoors to demonstrate his techniques. Class participants will be able to learn alongside Chris, evaluating views, debating camera angles, and considering focal points in order to shoot better images. Participants should bring their...
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2019 Oct 21
Native Woody Plant Materials
Repeats every week every Monday until Mon Oct 28 2019 .
10:00am to 3:00pm
10:00am to 3:00pm
Location: 
Garden in the Woods, 180 Hemenway Road, Framingham
Explore the vast variety of native trees, shrubs, and woody vines. Learn which species grow well in shade, which support local wildlife, and how to stagger plantings for continuous bloom, fruit production, and fall color. The class discusses growth characteristics, cultural requirements, and best horticultural uses. It begins with lectures and walks at Garden in the Woods in Framingham and includes a field trip to the Arnold Arboretum in...
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2019 Oct 16
Smartphone Photography: Capturing the Colors of Autumn
Repeats every week every Wednesday until Wed Oct 30 2019 .
1:30pm to 3:30pm
1:30pm to 3:30pm
1:30pm to 3:30pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Capture the drama of fall, when landscapes present a vivid array of colors and the palette is most striking. Professional photographer Nancy Katz will introduce fundamental concepts of landscape photography and then teach techniques for getting the best photographs from your smartphone camera. You will capture images in dynamic color and muted shades, then learn to enhance them using a host of editing tools provided in the Snapseed App. For best results, bring your smartphone and a commitment to completing the weekly homework assignments. Class will take place indoors and out.
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2019 Oct 10
Plants Go to War: A Botanical History of World War II
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
As the first botanical history of World War II, Plants Go to War examines military history from the perspective of plant science. From victory gardens to drugs, timber, rubber, and fibers, plants supplied materials with key roles in victory. Author and botanist Judith Sumner will speak of the many plants that were incorporated into wartime safety materials, diet and rations, and even bombers.
...
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2019 Aug 22
Garden for Biodiversity
7:00pm to 8:15pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Sam Jaffe, naturalist and educator, will present both the collaborative and deceitful nature of insects and plants as they’ve evolved to rely upon one another. This lecture, illustrated with Sam’s gorgeous photographs, will expand your invertebrate knowledge, appreciation, and desire to be the best garden host you can be.
Cost:
$10 for members; $15 for nonmembers.
...
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2019 Jul 20
Angiosperms and Gymnosperms: The Basics
2:30pm to 4:00pm
Location: 
Centre Street Gate, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
What better place to look for the differences between angiosperms (plants that flower and have enclosed seeds), and gymnosperms (plants with "naked seeds," including conifers, ginkgos, and others), than in the Arnold Arboretum landscape, where over 15,000 plants reside in a living museum. Join our guide as she points out trees in both groups and describes the characteristics of each.
...
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