NW Iowa News

The Prairie Woods Nature Center in Hawarden brings some of the outdoors indoors and allows students and families 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, told the Sioux City Journal. "You could start anywhere on the floor and work your way in any direction you'd want to."

The two-story, 12,000-square-foot, $4.8 million nature center is 12 years in the making. One educator was on staff back then. Four years ago a second educator was added to assist with 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," Ford 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 museum's 13-foot replica of a Sioux Quartzite rock has pieces of local natural history embedded in it. There is a segment of mammoth's tusk that was excavated from an Alton gravel pit in 1989. There are also Native American arrowheads that were found in Sioux County and pieces of a giant clam shell thought to be deposited during the Cretaceous period.

Exhibits in the center of the room detail what makes a healthy habitat and explores the changing seasons. The map in the star lab guides visitors to identify constellations which are illuminated on the walls. All of the exhibits are interactive, inviting visitors to push buttons or turn wheels to participate.

The nature center is also the home of the Sioux County Conservation Board's offices. There is also classroom space and a meeting room.