About the project

Winner of multiple awards, the 4,000 square foot Nature Center offers a family-oriented learning experience. Exhibits make extensive use of “green” materials, organic shapes, footprints, and playful colors. They teach important ecological concepts through interaction and observation, promote curiosity, and encourage exploration of Wildwood Lake and its surroundings.

Visitors match original and recycled materials, listen to a mystery as told by some of the park’s creatures, turn pylons showing seasonal changes in plants, engage in games requiring the matching of animals and their habitats, and crawl through an underground burrow to discover some of the park’s less obvious inhabitants. Throughout the Center visitors can engage in activities that are both
simple and complex and that involve electronic media or the opening of doors. Opportunities also exist for visitors to observe living wildlife in both natural and
recreated settings.

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

• Bird observation area

• Living aquariums & terrariums

• Above & below-ground diorama with crawl-through tunnel & light-up "Who Lives Here" quiz

• Microscope & magnifier observation activities

• Audio mystery play using the "voices" of park inhabitants

• Animated mechanical "Wetlands" machine - visitors remove a cog to see the effect of its absence on the entire wetland ecosystem

• Interactive electronic quiz tests visitor's abilities to recognize an ecosystem

• Visitors turn matching pylons to see seasonal changes around Wildwood Lake

• Turn-the-tires match interactive allows visitors to connect post-consumer materials with products made from them

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CLIENT

Dauphin County Department of Parks & Recreation

PROJECT LOCATION

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

SERVICES PROVIDED

• Planning

• All phases of exhibition design

• Coordination with project architects

• General contracting of exhibit fabrication and installation

PROJECT PARTNERS

• Fabrication & Project Management: Lynch Exhibits

RECOGNITION

• AIA – Honors Award for Design Excellence

• National Association of County Parks and Recreation Officials – Outstanding Award