Getting Some Oxygen

A wonderful day today in Cambridge, warm, sunny, full of blossoms, birds, and young leaves. I had the opportunity to take my BAC (Boston Architecture College) students on a field trip to Mt. Auburn Cemetery, the first landscaped cemetery in the United States and a relic of 19th-century monument to nature.

My students are a wonderful group, mostly architects, a few landscape architects and some other design people. The course (Botany for Designers) is required for landscape architects and a science elective for everybody else. The BAC requires students to work during the day so let me tell you, when my students bring themselves to class at 5PM every Tuesday they are tired. Way too tired to "enjoy" a lecture on angiosperm reproduction, plant anatomy, or the structure and functions of water.

Today was a different story. The sheer natural beauty all around us, the fluid air, the ability to walk and talk unfettered, to handle, smell, and observe nature from every angle made an enormous difference. We had a super field trip, full of animated discussion, lots of laughs, and a few surprises.

Getting these awesome people out into nature brought out the best in all of us.