Education
She Tried to Help Schools Build Healthier Playgrounds. Then Her E.P.A. Grant Was Canceled.
Lost Science is an ongoing series of accounts from scientists who have lost their jobs or funding after cuts by the Trump administration. The conversations have been edited for clarity and length. Here’s why we’re doing this.
Kirsten Beyer: We had a three-year study, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, focused on environmental health among children. We had two main aims. The first was to develop a curriculum so that Milwaukee Public Schools teachers could teach about environmental health, environmental health disparities and climate change.
The second aim was to look at the impact of schoolyard greening on health and environmental outcomes. There’s this greening initiative in Milwaukee to redevelop schoolyards. Many of them were sheets of asphalt. A lot of them were in disrepair. The redevelopment plans included things like planting trees, adding outdoor classrooms, improving storm water drainage with green infrastructure and improving sports fields and natural play spaces.
We built a study to collect data before and after. There are lots of schools around the country that have similar situations, so we were excited about sharing our results and informing other jurisdictions about the impact of this redevelopment.
We had the kids complete surveys. We measured things like social and emotional health, environmental health literacy, attitudes toward outdoor play. We also had sensors that measured their physical activity levels, time spent outdoors and where they spent time in the schoolyard. We went out and observed recess. How are kids playing? How is conflict being resolved? How engaged are the teachers or monitors? We measured air pollution and how hot those schoolyards were before greening.
We were in the field in May 2025, collecting our final post-redevelopment data, when the grant was canceled. It was a shock. We had hired people as data collectors and had a month of data collection left.
I decided to rustle up some other resources just to get data collection done. But then we had no more money to support our community partners, staff or graduate students. We had to take people off this project.
Now we’re trying to do something with all of this data that we’ve collected: process it, analyze it and, importantly, share it.
We have just piles of data. There are papers that won’t get written and data that won’t be shared because this happened.
But I can’t just abandon this work. This is important to my community partners. This is important to other schools. And this is important to all of the kids who gave us their time, all the parents who allowed us to do research with their kids. There’s a moral imperative to continue the work, albeit slowly.
Kirsten Beyer is a health geographer at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
In our national memory, George Washington is a mythic figure, cast in metal, carved in stone. His leadership, first as general, then as president, is so intertwined with the roots of this country that it is sometimes hard to separate the man from the idea of America. How does one imagine the living presence of such an icon, much less embody him?
There is a small fraternity of men bold enough to try. At historical parks and commemorations from Virginia to Seattle, these interpreters (their preferred term) transform themselves into Washington. Each has his own approach, but what all their representations seek to capture is a legacy that has endured from his time to ours. If America, at least in part, is an idea, then our national project becomes, like theirs, an act of interpretation, an imperfect attempt to translate some idealized vision into the messy reality of our own time.
— Ezekiel Kweku
“By some strange quirk
of genetics, I have
Washington’s exact
dimensions. Where my
sleeves fall on my wrist,
the size of my chest, the
size of my thighs, where
the breeches fall to my
knees, are all identical.”
John Koopman, 67, often performs
while riding his horse, Bear. He
has portrayed Washington for 20 years.
James Fryer, 70, wears a replica of a general’s uniform that Washington designed himself. He recently completed training to portray Washington for the nonprofit Historic Philadelphia.
“Some people portray George as a marble statue. I don’t do a marble George. I am interested in talking to everyone, even those who yell at me because George was a slave owner. I want to respect them, try to educate them, or maybe even inspire them.”
Vern Frykholm, 77, was moved to bring his interpretation of Washington to Washington State, where he lives, after seeing a 2011 performance in Pennsylvania.
Dean Malissa, 73, signs his personal
correspondence, including emails,
as Washington did: “Your Most Humble
and Obedient Servant.” He became
the Official George Washington
at Mount Vernon in 2004, and held
that role for nearly 20 years.
“I describe him sometimes as just a dude. I look at him and think, I could see myself in the same world, making similar bad decisions or similar good decisions.”
Daniel Cross, 39, portrayed a young Washington at Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg until last year. He now works with organizations around the country.
Curt Radabaugh, 62, has 13,000 history books in his personal library, including several hundred about Washington. He is a veteran of the U.S. Marines and a retired police officer.
“He’s a mentor, a father
figure, and not only in the
sense that he’s a patriarch
of the country. Because
I grew up without a
father, he kind of became
my surrogate father.”
Brian Hilton, 58, says he researches
Washington’s era every morning before
his children get up and at night after
they go to bed. He is a high school history
teacher near Richmond, Va.
Daniel Shippey, 57, partners on interpretations with his wife, Kelly, who portrays Martha Washington. Kelly researched 18th-century hair techniques to create her husband’s costume hairstyle. They live in Virginia.
“You’re playing the myth of George Washington as well as the historical figure. I make his voice a little firmer and deeper than it probably was in real life. I play him a little funnier than he probably was. In reality, if you came to see him, he probably wouldn’t talk to you as much as I do.”
Doug Thomas, 53, is Washington’s second cousin nine times removed.
John Godzieba, 67, has reenacted
the crossing of the Delaware as
Washington every Christmas for the
past 16 years at Pennsylvania’s
Washington Crossing Historic Park.
“In many ways I don’t look like him. My eye color is wrong. My nose is wrong. My hair color is wrong. I wouldn’t have cast myself in this role.”
Ron Carnegie, 64, has portrayed Washington at Colonial Williamsburg for 20 years.
Ryan Williams, 37, is a veteran who specializes in playing a young Washington during the French and Indian War. He lives in Virginia.
“Some people portray
Washington almost
like a superhero.
I like to bring out that
he has faults. He’s a
person like you or me.”
Michael Grillo, 64, is a historical
tailor who hand-sews his own clothes
for reenactments. He also makes
period props, including two American
battle flags and pewter mugs
engraved with Washington’s crest.
Martin Schoeller is a photographer and director known for his close-up portraits of everyone from world leaders and celebrities to female bodybuilders. For this project, he used a large format camera to photograph 13 historical interpreters of George Washington — many of whom arrived in full uniform — over three days in Virginia and New York City.
Additional reporting by Tenzin D. Tsagong. Interviews have been edited and condensed for length and clarity. Top quotes from Brian Hilton, Daniel Shippey and Daniel Cross.
Produced by Sara Barrett, Danny DeBelius and Sam Whitney. Additional production by Olivia James.
One task the robots can take from us? Cleaning. Especially hard-to-access windows. So when writers Caroline Mullen and Evan Dent found this little guy — whose government name is “EcoVacs Winbot Mini” — they were intrigued. Could he clean the uncleanable? Caroline and Evan put their robot friend to the test at both the Wirecutter office and a high-rise apartment. Is a robo-window cleaner more effective than scrubbing yourself?
new video loaded: School Year Cut Short and Aid Delivery Slowed Amid Fuel Crisis in Cuba
By McKinnon de Kuyper
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