The Great Outdoors
Offering an all-terrain experience, the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and Nature Center provides interactive, immersive education in STEM and ecology. Students can see and investigate real-world phenomena in outdoor exhibits and learn about more abstract ecological concepts in indoor exhibits.
The Nature Center uses all its resources to create an immersive experience for visitors, especially using the area it occupies. Most of what visitors can see and interact with is outside, in the great outdoors.
Creative Meeting Places
Walk on air in the Canopy Walk exhibit while you learn about the importance of forests and the ecosystems that live within them. The walk takes visitors from ground level to nearly 100 feet up, offering a unique perspective that is normally unavailable. Visitors can meet squirrels and woodpeckers as they traverse the canopy of the Center’s surrounding forest.
Back on the ground, the Songbird Aviary welcomes visitors and introduces them to its residents. The over 2,000-square-foot exhibit is home to many songbirds. Learn about the ecological role songbirds play in larger ecosystems as you pass through. Observe these birds up close as the aviary has no barriers between the birds’ space and visitors. The songbirds won’t be bothered, as they are used to visitors.
Visitors can also learn about avian predators with a visit to the Center’s bird enclosures. Here, students can get up close and personal with birds of prey they might never see in the wild, or only see once or twice. These birds have sustained injuries that prevent them from living in the wild again, so the Center has taken them in so they can keep living.
Evolutionary Bafflement
Of the few indoor exhibitions, one standout is the exhibit Birds are Dinosaurs. It may feel a little outlandish to say birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, but it’s true! Life-size replicas, skeletons, and hands-on activities offer insight into the evolutionary path that turned Jurassic Park into Chicken Run.
Get to Know the Wildlife
The Vermont Institute of Natural Science and Nature Center focuses on the natural world and aims to get visitors excited through experience. In addition to outdoor exhibitions, the Center has over a mile of nature trails winding through its floodplain forest for visitors to explore. Here, there’s always a chance to see wildlife, just like in the canopy high above. Students can compare who they meet on the ground and who they meet in the air. These trails also connect to Quechee National Forest, so you never know where you’ll go.
