The Ivy Creek Foundation has been committed to environmental education since its beginning almost thirty years ago. While we offer nature tours to schools and groups, we also offer public education programs for all ages, primarily on weekends and evenings. Additionally we encourage like-minded groups to utilize the Education Building for their own public education programs and meetings.

Educational initiatives are our programs that go beyond nature tours and on-site programs to increase environmental awareness among the general public. In the past this included native plantings around the education building. Future plans might include teaching people the importance of water conservation through building rain gardens and rain barrel systems. We have also developed a greening program on green roofs on the county office building and city hall as well as geothermal buildings. Now we are developing an outreach program for use in the school system on life processes for monarchs, the biology of animal skulls and stream health monitoring.

Our calendar of public programs is printed in the quarterly newsletter, posted in the kiosk at Ivy Creek Natural Area, and updated electronically on our website. In case of weather questions or cancellations keep up to date on new events by checking our calendar first for information.

Often we have much more recent news than will fit in our newsletter, either in text, color photos, or perhaps in sound. For example, John Zimmerman has been providing regular updates on birds throughout the spring and summer on everything from nighthawks to the eating habits of goldfinches. Tony Russell just gave us a number of pictures from both the summer wildflower walk as well as pictures of Ragged Mountain Natural Area.

Upcoming Events is for larger than usual events to inform you without having to wait for the newsletter. The annual meeting is one obvious example. But also we sometimes have public education events in between newsletter cycles. The Snakes of Virginia in August was one recent example.