Feb 12 2021
Arvolyn Hill is the Family Programs Coordinator at the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden at the New York Botanical Garden. She has been at the Garden since 2017. She has a degree in Pan African studies from Drew University, and an education in herbalism from Twin Star Connecticut's School of Herbal and Educational Studies. She was a 2019 Emerging Leader at the BEETLES Institute (Better Environmental Education, Teaching, Learning & Expertise Sharing), and has her own online apothecary shop called Gold Feather.
This interview has been edited slightly for clarity.
LB: “Rooted in Plants” is an NYBG curriculum for children and families celebrating different plants and their uses in Africa and throughout the diaspora. Can you tell us a little about the importance of plants to people in Africa as well as their descendants worldwide?
AH: Plants are integral to human life. In Africa that is no different. Plants have been used as food, medicine and tools for supporting human life in Africa for hundreds of years and continue to today. Plants like black eyed peas found their way to America by the seeds traveling through African women's braids during the transatlantic slave trade. Enslaved people were able to use those plants to survive.
You selected the following plants for children’s activities: indigo (Indigofera sp.), plantain (Plantago sp.), coffee (Coffea sp.), okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), millet (a variety of grass species), black eyed peas (Vigna unguiculata), and tamarind (Tamarindus indica). What’s the significance of these plants specifically, and how did you pick them?
We choose indigo because many people attribute indigo dyeing to Japan, however indigo dyeing is a huge part of Yoruba culture and West African tradition. We had kids make their own indigo dyed pouch that they could take home as well as learn about that plant and how the dye is extracted.
We had an activity dedicated to plantain to highlight the often unknown story of an enslaved African in the United States named Cesar who used the plantain plant for its medicinal properties to make a salve. He was able to share his remedy to grant him his freedom when people realized it was effective.
Coffee, okra, millet, black eyed peas and tamarind were all used because they are plants that are native to Africa, and continue to be used throughout the diaspora. Kids used seeds from each plant to make a seed card on an outline of the continent of Africa.
You also featured a zine-making activity, referencing the Tuskegee Institute Experiment Station Bulletins written and circulated by George Washington Carver. How does the practice of communicating information (and creativity) complement the science of botany?
The zine making in honor of George Wasington Carver was a way for kids to take all that they learned after experiencing the program and put their ideas into a booklet. We gave them old seed catalogs and any magazines we had for them to cut out images that resonated with them. When kids are learning new science ideas it's helpful to have space and time to reflect on what they have learned, and to try to communicate it back.
You are also an artist—can you tell us about how your work at the Garden and with plants has influenced your practice?
Before working at the Garden, I studied herbalism after college and worked in community gardens and was into farming, as well as growing herbs, and I knew I wanted to work with kids and do youth work, but enjoyed being outside and doing gardening activities, so the ability to work at the Garden really tied that all together. Before, I would be outside and just see ‘green’, but after herbalism school it really opened my eyes to seeing ‘plantain, yarrow, mullein.’ It was like learning a new language. Since being at the botanical garden, it’s really influenced my art, in that I’ve been able to learn through the different classes I’ve taken there. I had never heard of an herbarium before working here, and through taking the Arts and Science class I fell deeply in love with making pressed plants. I had been making pressed flower art for a few years, but I didn’t know that there was a proper way to do it, and how important pressed and preserved plants are to the scientific record. The New York Botanical Garden has always been an inspiring place, I'm inspired by the different seasons which translates into what I make.
How does your work as an herbalist translate to your work as an outdoor educator?
It's interesting because so much of herbalism is focused on plants that are seen as invasives by botanists. I love using plants like mugwort—but teaching citizen science to kids, I teach them that we need to remove it from the environment because it’s invasive. So it’s an interesting push and pull of knowing plants and their medicinal uses and really paying attention to Indigenous folks and how they have used plants but also working at an institution that places a different ecological value on them. So my work having fun with plants and making teas and tinctures is sometimes different than my work at the Garden, where I’m more focused on nature science activities and opening up kids’ worlds to plants and getting them comfortable exploring.
What was your own experience with nature as a child?
I grew up on a farm in rural Connecticut, so I was always surrounded by plants and nature. I always felt really comfortable in the forest. It was amazing. I feel really lucky and it wasn’t until I was older that I realized how privileged I was and how it was really rare to have those experiences.
My mom and dad would send me to camp in Maine, and I always encountered outdoor educators who didn’t look like me. Mostly white people, mostly white spaces. That’s one thing I want to change with my own career: providing better representation of Black people and POC in outdoor spaces and outdoor education. Kids won’t think it’s for them if they don’t see people like them doing these things. We still need to break down stigmas like ‘Black people don’t like hiking or spending time in nature’ which is just not true. So that’s something that inspires my work and was a huge part of my childhood. Being outside really shaped the way that I live my life now and the work that I’m most passionate about. I really love my job at the Children’s Garden. Even though we’ve had to translate it all to virtual this past year, it’s been cool to experiment and see the ways we can still bring nature to children and inspire them to enjoy the nature in front of them. Even if we can’t have them come to the garden, there is still nature right outside, even if it’s just the one tree on their block.
This past year the coronavirus pandemic has changed the way the Garden has been interacting with visitors—what can families interested in activities at the Children’s Garden look forward to celebrating virtually for Black History Month?
This year we are going to be doing an Explainers Story Hour. There will be a book read by our Explainers. The book we selected is Mama Miti (by Donna Jo Napoli and Kadir Nelson) which is about the life of Wangari Maathai who was the first African woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for her work in environmentalism in Kenya restoring trees. So they’re going to read the book and that will be followed by an activity video called “Adopt a Tree”.
We’re also doing a school program celebrating Black Botanists and Scientists where schools can register for a virtual field trip. We’ll be celebrating these scientists who are alive today and hearing their stories and doing a mini experiment inspired by the work of one of the scientists. We’re really excited—we’ve never done something like this before and we’re looking forward to seeing how it goes!
