Bartholomew’s Cobble
East Meadow Herald
E.M. teen is Landmark Volunteer

Jonathan Rothschild, 17, of East Meadow, is spending two weeks as a Landmark Volunteer at Bartholomew’s Cobble, which is owned and maintained by the Trustees of Reservations.
Rothschild, son of Abby Rothschild Kaplan and Jerry Rothschild, will join a team that will help with plant conservation efforts as well as work on bridges and mountain trials.  The team will also stay at a nearby school.
Rothschild incorporates volunteering in his everyday life by working at the local hospital and tutoring in biology and chemistry.  He is a member of the National Honor Society the French Honor Society and the Science Honor Society at East Meadow High School where he will be a senior in the fall.  He is also a member of the Key Club and SADD, is a Peer Aids Leader, and plays the French horn in both the school band and the marching band.
Outside of school he enjoys tennis, horseback riding, running, skiing, and playing with his rescued Greyhound, Mikey.  Rothschild is participating in his third Landmark Volunteers program this summer: In 2004 he spent two weeks at Pathfinder Village in Edmeston, NY and last summer he worked at Gould Farm in Monterey, MA.  He has also spent some time during the past two summers attending a summer science program at Columbia University, taking classes in molecular biology, genetics, and biological conservation.
Landmark Volunteers, based in Sheffield, Ma, is a non-profit summer service organization offering high school students the opportunity to perform community service at nationally recognized historical, cultural, and environmental or social service institutions located throughout the country.
Now in its fifteenth year, Landmark Volunteers provides each host organization with an entire team of hard-working young people capable of accomplishing a great deal of much-needed manual labor.
Bartholomew’s Cobble is named for two rocky knolls that rise dramatically above the Housatonic River.  These “cobbles” consist of marble and quartzite, and provide the basis for the alkaline or “seeet” soils that support a divers and unusual array of plant life.  Visitors may explore this natural rock garden along the Ledges Interpretive Trail.
The reservation’s numerous and varied habitats support more than 800 species of vascular plants, including abundant woodland wildflowers and one of North America’s greatest diversities of ferns and fern allies.  More than 250 species of migratory and resident birds have been recorded at the Cobble since The Trustees of Reservations acquired the property in 1946.

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