Ozark Natural Science Center

Hell for the overly gregarious, heaven for the misanthropic, fiction for the fifth-grader.  There is much to explore in the relationship between solitude and humanity.  Like a few other things, solitude in moderation, under certain circumstances and with a prepared mind is life enhancing (ask John Muir).  However, too much, in the wrong place or [...]

After the rain we had last week, the reptiles and amphibians came out of hiding. We were happy to find three turtles to add to our turtle tracking project last week and a few more this week! Most of them had been caught before, but one was a new resident. Read more about turtle tracking [...]

 ”When people ask me, ‘How shall we teach our children to love nature? I reply: ‘Do not try to teach them at all. Just turn them loose in the country and trust to luck.’” – John Burroughs, Nature Near Home And Other Papers (1913).

Flower: On the 19th of April, naturalists counted 35 different species of wildflowers blooming on the science center campus. This week we counted half that many. The hot weather that encouraged so many flowers to bloom early also rushed the blooms to drop their wilting petals early. Birds: Many new summer residents have been seen in the [...]

“There is no word for ‘nature’ in my language… Nature, in English, seems to refer to that which is separate from human beings. It is a distinction we don’t recognize.” –Audrey Shenandoah, a member of the Onondaga clan. (as written by Harvey Arder and Steve Wall in the Wisdomkeepers [1990]).

The warm weather has finally woken the turtles. At the Ozark Natural Science Center we have a special relationship with three toed box turtles. The center tracks turtles, collects data, and teaches children about these reptiles. Though the common eastern box turtle has not crawled onto the endangered species list, it is considered threatened. Due to [...]