How would you want your investment in Berks Nature returned to you?
In trees planted or waterways cleaned? Maybe in acres protected or history recorded?
In 2005, a series of strategically distributed focus groups posed these very questions to the citizens of Berks County.
When forced to choose just one, the County was in unanimous agreement: invest in environmental education.
It was also at this time that we, as a nation, were introduced to the concept of “nature-deficit disorder,” a phrase coined by Richard Louv, author of the international bestseller Last Child in the Woods. The book drew an explicit, research-driven connection between nature and the physical and emotional health of children, launching a nationwide movement to reconnect with the great outdoors.
As the tides of our national and local consciousness turned towards the outdoors and Berks Nature found new leadership under Kim Murphy, a former educator herself, it was indeed a fortuitous time for Berks Nature to reinvest in environmental education.
First, Berks Nature would need to find a home for our new nature center; once more, timing was on our side.
In 2001, the Angelica Creek Dam breached and the impounded lake drained, revealing a sorely degraded floodplain, choked with a century’s worth of sediment.
Instead of rebuilding the dam, the City of Reading chose to restore the Angelica Creek floodplain, utilizing its wetland nexus as a natural stormwater mitigation measure, and reinvest in Angelica Creek Park’s recreational infrastructure.
The 75-acre Angelica Park had it all: proximity to Reading, newly blazed trails with connections to a regional trail network, water access, and other wildlife habitats from wooded hills to flowering meadows. It also had a building to host educational programming: a boathouse built for recreation on the formerly impounded lake.
With a site selected, designing the physical nature center’s structure began. Berks Nature hired GWWO Architects, a firm with an impressive portfolio of experience building sustainable, energy-efficient nature centers across the country. Their task: design a building with grounds that both demonstrated and inspired nature-based living.
The result, a LEED Gold-certified nature center with an immersive campus of native plantings and opportunities for outdoor play, became a place for nature to thrive and nature lovers to roam: The Nature Place.
After several years of holding public programs and a summer Eco-Camp out of the park’s former boathouse, Berks Nature finally opens The Nature Place environmental education center in 2017.
Louv wasn’t the only one advocating for a return to nature in the early 2000s. Ken Finch, founder of the Green Hearts Institute for Nature in Childhood, was embarking on an effort to create a nationwide network of nature preschools, where students could play and explore all day, every day, rain or shine.
While still designing The Nature Place, Berks Nature brought Finch to Angelica Creek Park. Inspired by this consultation, Berks Nature integrates a nature preschool into their planning and in 2018, the Nature Preschool welcomes its first class of students.
Groundbreaking ceremony for The Nature Place.
One of Berks Nature’s first family creek walks in the Angelica Creek, even before The Nature Place nature center was constructed and open to the public.
While nature-based education isn’t a new concept nationally or globally, Berks Nature’s Nature Preschool was one of the first of its kind in Berks County. The Nature Preschool embodies the pedagogy of nature-based early childhood education: activities involve less materials and request more imagination; mindfulness practice in the form of sit spots and even yoga are all regular occurrences; and most of the day is spent outside, often in the Nature Play Zone.
A bed of dry river stones; fallen trees and stumps; bowls of mud and leaves; these features of The Nature Place’s nature play zone may lack the shine and polish of traditional playgrounds, but they are no less intentional, engaging, or fun. In fact, these natural materials are all arranged strategically to provoke learning without forcing it.
A child “full immersing” themselves in nature-based learning at Angelica Creek Park with Berks Nature.
Joan Marten, Nature Preschool Teacher, leads preschoolers through a circle time activity in the Nature Play Zone.
Children climb an old tree’s root ball in Berks Nature’s Nature Play Zone.
The Nature Place is Berks Nature’s answer to the community’s call first heard during the 2005 focus group meetings. Through the 2000s, the campus and Berks Nature’s educational opportunities proactively adapted to serve the County’s emerging needs.
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close their doors, Berks Nature launched a Camp for School program. From safely spaced cubicles within The Nature Place’s classrooms, Berks Nature’s educators helped students stay on task with their individual virtual learning throughout the school day.
Student attending Berks Nature’s Camp for School during the Covid-19 Pandemic to receive supervision from Berks Nature’s educators during virtual learning.
But when class was dismissed, everyone went outside. The students hiked, played in the nature play zone, or simply paused to breathe the fresh air and rest.
The Nature Place continues to be a place of both learning and healing.
From garden seeds sowed to floodplain trees planted; from field trips to creek currents; from echoes of tree-climbing elation to wetland symphonies of conk-la-ree; in Angelica Creek Park, new life takes root and the next generation of nature’s guardians finds their place.