PROGRESS: $4.8 million nature center opens in Sioux County

HAWARDEN, Iowa -- On a frigid Tuesday morning in January, Mac, an ornate box turtle, laid nestled in wood-chip bedding in an enclosure at the Prairie Woods Nature Center in rural Hawarden.

The tiny land turtle with yellow lines on its shell is one of a handful of live reptiles and amphibians that reside on the newly opened, two-story, 12,000-square-foot nature center's exhibit floor, which encourages visitors to "see the unseen" in nature.

"Not seeing it just as you would passing it on the trail, but seeing it as if you had a naturalist to say, 'Hey, let's peel this bark back and look at the bark beetle trails. Let's roll over this log and see what lives underneath and how this log is decomposing,'" Sunday Ford, Sioux County Conservation Board assistant director, explained of the exhibits, which are circular in design. "You could start anywhere on the floor and work your way in any direction you'd want to."

Ford said the $4.8 million nature center, which is situated in Oak Grove Park at 4051 Cherry Ave., was 12 years in the making. Back then, Ford said just one educator was on staff. Four years ago, she said a second educator was added to keep up with the demand for environmental education programs in the county.  

"We realized that we don't have a facility, but we have the staff to be able to take on more programs and get more people connected with the outdoors. With this facility, we now have the space where both of us can teach and increase our numbers," she said. "We would love to have the students come in and reinforce what we're teaching in the schools when we're invited in."

The nature center features a 13-foot, pink-colored replica of a Sioux Quartzite rock. Embedded in the sculpture are display cases that house a segment of a mammoth's tusk that was excavated in 1989 from a gravel pit north of Alton, Iowa; Native American arrowheads that were found in Sioux County; as well as pieces of a giant clam shell thought to have been deposited near the end of the Cretaceous period.

Exhibits in the center of the expansive room, where light floods through floor-to-ceiling windows, inform about what makes a healthy habitat and explore the changing seasons. A taxidermic coyote lunges at a pheasant in the former exhibit, while a great horned owl sits perched overhead clutching a squirrel in its talons.

"The exhibits were designed with the next generation science standards in mind and with local teachers brainstorming what they would like to see here," Ford said.  

A map in the star lab guides visitors as they seek to identify the constellations, which are illuminated on the lab's walls.

"There are minerals that glow in the blacklight; and there are flowers," Ford said. "You can see how the bees and butterflies see."

Pioneer-themed clothing hangs on hooks affixed to the star labs outside walls. Before the settlers arrived in large numbers, Sioux County was largely prairie. Some of the first white settlers lived close to their Native American neighbors.

All of the exhibits include a variety of interactive elements. Visitors can press a button to make minerals glow in the star lab, turn a wheel to simulate a flood, and arrange building blocks to create a habitat of their choosing.

The nature center houses the Sioux County Conservation Board's offices and also boasts classroom space and a meeting room, which Ford said was designed with senior groups in mind. The meeting room, which has a kitchenette and ample space for tables and chairs, showcases views of the rolling prairie.

"As naturalists, we go to the nursing homes and also the long-term-care and assisted living facilities in the county and we bring programs about nature to them," Ford said. "They really love to come out and take a tour of the park -- drive through in their vans and then stop for a program."