By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
The new Kids Learning Tree Exhibit at Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center left everyone beaming with pride Monday afternoon. For Crawford Park District board member Peggy DeGray, it was a moment of bittersweet pride.
DeGray’s husband passed away last year and the family donated most of his money to the Kids Learning Tree Exhibit.
“He’s involved in it. He thought this was going to be great,” DeGray said.
The Park District turned to Splashmakers of Mansfield to design the project in 2014 and Optic Nerve Art of Columbus began installation on Dec. 7, 2015. The tree exhibit, which stands 17-feet tall, has a wooden frame construction with sculpting foam used to form the tree trunk, limbs, hollow log, cave, and eagle’s nest. It is also covered in fire-retardant protective coating.
“The price tag kind of set us for a pretty big loop,” Fisher admitted. “But with board members like Martha (Kozik) and Division of Wildlife . . . they wanted to help.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife, Wildlife Diversity Fund donated $5,000 towards the project. In all, 65 individuals, businesses, charities, clubs, and grant foundations contributed to the $48,250 project, including the DeGray family.
“I think it’s wonderful; I have many grandchildren so I know they’re going to enjoy it,” DeGray said.
Crawford Park District Director Bill Fisher presented the tree exhibit with his usual enthusiasm for nature and learning.
“The intent is to, number one, be in a place that is nature-related but extremely different than they’d have anywhere else,” explained Fisher. “It’s got that wow factor to it. We want kids to look at it and think about that – when they’re in there playing, be learning about nature, feel like they’re in (a) quasi-natural setting.”
The Kids Learning Tree Exhibit will be a never-ending cycle of change, just as the habitat it is modeled after. Currently, it features a learning table in the upper level of the tree house with wood blocks, buckeyes, acorns, and even a branch that beavers have chewed on. The lower portion of the tree exhibit features an underground experience with a cave and a sugar maple sap demonstration area. There are also two buttons that will create sounds of nature, such as bird calls. The eagle’s nest will soon feature a taxidermy eagle, which is currently on order.
“All of that for kids to handle, touch, manipulate, learn, ask questions about,” Fisher said. “It’ll just continue to grow and change. We don’t want it to be static; we want it to be something the kids will just continue to be enthralled with and want to learn.”
“If you come back three years from now there’s going to be different things on it. That’s kind of what we wanted – we wanted to make sure that it kept people coming back,” said Park District Naturalist Josh Dyer, who came up with the initial concept. “That was the comment that was made that spurred this.”
Dyer said a grandfather brought his grandchild in one day and asked if there was anything new at Lowe-Volk Nature Center.
“It hit just like a knife in your heart,” Dyer remembered. “We want to keep it dynamic and change it. That’s what I’m looking forward to. Keep working on it and keep it changing for kids to come back – and adults, as well.”
Though kids can visit the tree exhibit anytime, the first big event kicked off Monday night as Joy Etter-Link hosted a program that centered on animals that use trees as their homes.
“We’ve had lots of kids in here,” Fisher said during a special presentation of the tree exhibit Monday afternoon. Many of those kids asked if they could in the new exhibit, but Fisher had to turn them away for the time being until it was finished and officially opened on March 1.