science

Margaret McKenny

Margaret McKenny is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Margaret McKenny rather than just read about it. In short: Margaret McKenny (April 17, 1885 - August 1969) was an American landscape architect, naturalist, activist, and writer who was referred to as the "Grand Dame" of Northwest mushrooming. Early life and education Born in Olympia, Washington, she was a child of General Thomas I.

Key takeaways

Margaret McKenny belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Margaret McKenny to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Margaret McKenny from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Margaret McKenny (April 17, 1885 - August 1969) was an American landscape architect, naturalist, activist, and writer who was referred to as the "Grand Dame" of Northwest mushrooming.

Early life and education Born in Olympia, Washington, she was a child of General Thomas I. McKenny, who served as a General in the Civil War as well as Indian Agent for Washington Territory. Her mother was Cynthia Adelaide, and she was an only child. After attending local schools in Olympia, McKenny attended one of the few schools of landscape architecture open to women students at the turn of the century called the Lowthorpe School in Groton, Massachusetts. While attending Lowthorpe, she joined the Boston Mycological Club, creating a pathway to become a nationally-recognized mycologist.

Career After moving back to Olympia, McKenny operated a Montessori school from 1913 to 1919. In 1919, she moved to New York City and worked for the Garden Club of America and the New York City Gardens Club as a landscape architect, among other organizations. In addition to writing for the New York Botanical Garden, she also became a staff member of the Nature Lore School at the American Museum of Natural History. McKenny returned to Olympia in 1943. Among other jobs, she worked as official photographer for the Washington State Parks Commission.

Activism McKenny led several efforts to preserving local open spaces in Olympia from private development. Those locations include Sylvester Park in the downtown core of the city, which is included in the listing for the Olympia Downtown Historic District. Another notable success is Watershed Park, a 153 acres (62 ha) temperate rainforest in the central core of the city. McKenney founded a group called "Citizens of the Future" which circulated a petition to save the park from development, and was ultimately successful because of a trial in the Washington Supreme Court. McKenny is also credited with being "among the first to articulate the need for the Nisqually River" delta in an era when the Port of Tacoma considered dredging the delta for a deepwater harbor and the City of Seattle considered putting a garbage dump there. In the longterm, McKenny's activism resulted in the establishment of the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. In addition to several other organizations, McKenny is credited with founding the Olympia Audubon Society.

Honors The Olympia School District named Margaret McKenny Elementary School in her memory and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources named the Margaret McKenny Campground in Capitol State Forest for her. The Olympia City Council named Margaret McKenny Park for her. The 4.16 acres (1.68 ha) site, located east of Watershed Park, was purchased by the city in 1999 and dedicated in her name ten years later. The park features a basketball court, looped trail, and a playground.

Selected works She is the author of several field guides, books, newspaper articles and encyclopedia entries.

Mushrooms of Field and Wood (1929) John Day Company The Wild Garden (1936) Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. Your City Garden with E. L. D. Seymour (1937) D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc. A Book of Wild Flowers (1939) MacMillan Company Birds in the Garden and How to Attract Them (1939) Reynal & Hitchcock A Book of Garden Flowers (1940) MacMillan Company How the Hurricane Helped (illustrated by Winifred Bromhall, 1940) Alfred A Knopf Trees of the Countryside (1942) Alfred A Knopf Washington Nature Notes (1944) Saalfield Publishing Company later printed as Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest (1954) Kessinger Publishing Abe and His Girl Friend Amble (1945) Binfords & Mort Little White Pig (1945) Little White Pig A Book of Wayside Fruits (1945) MacMillan Company Tree Pruning Manual for the City of Olympia Tree Program with John Duffield; re-issued as the National Park Service Tree Preservation Bulletin #4 (1961) The Savory Wild Mushroom with Daniel E. Stuntz (1962) University of Washington Press A Field guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-Central North America with Roger Tory Peterson (1968) She was also an associate editor of the Wise Garden Encyclopedia in 1936 for the W. H. Wise & Company and contributed essays on "Wild Flowers" and "Growing Flowers and Vegetables" for the Childcraft encyclopedia series in 1960 for World Book Inc.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Margaret McKenny

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Margaret McKenny claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Margaret McKenny before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Margaret McKenny ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Margaret McKenny

In research: Margaret McKenny appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Margaret McKenny in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Margaret McKenny is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1885 births, 1969 deaths, 20th-century American women writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Margaret McKenny outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Margaret McKenny in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Margaret McKenny means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Margaret McKenny out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Margaret McKenny in simple terms?

Margaret McKenny (April 17, 1885 - August 1969) was an American landscape architect, naturalist, activist, and writer who was referred to as the "Grand Dame" of Northwest mushrooming. Early life and education Born in Olympia, Washington, she was a child of General Thomas I.

Why does Margaret McKenny matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Margaret McKenny?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Margaret McKenny.