I like to learn about nature centers by reading their reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, and similar websites. There are praising remarks and critical ones, but nothing says “Kiss of Death” like a review that describes a center as “______’s best-kept secret.” The reviewers may consider “best-kept secret” to be a… read more →
Let me return (finally!) to the topic I launched in my post of November 4. Every nature center makes investments, and presumably every nature center seeks some sort of return. As I wrote several months ago, that return is unique to your organization, and you (or your management, or your… read more →
The more I read the research about what leads people to become motivated conservationists, the more I believe that the most important work nature centers do is with the very young—pre-reading age children who are still filled with a sense of wonder, and who are forming the affinities and emotional… read more →
One of the perks of working at most nature centers and similar places is that you get, at least occasionally, packets of hand-illustrated thank you notes from school children who have visited. One of the ones I remember best was addressed to an educator on my staff, displaying a portrait… read more →
I’ll admit it—I’m one of those people who sees things as they are, and says “Why?” And frankly, I wish I’d started doing it sooner. It’s a question I don’t think gets asked often enough at nature centers. There are lots of people in our profession who ask, “Why not?”… read more →
“The nature center is a new idea,” wrote Byron Ashbaugh in his National Audubon Society bulletin Planning a Nature Center. The year was 1963. The Audubon Center in Greenwich (CT) had opened in 1942—it’s the oldest nature center I can find. (Anybody know of an older one?) Other centers I… read more →
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