Who Visits A Nature Center?
Nature Centers are landscape features that can service as tourist attractions in their local uniqueness, while being of benefit to local communities and "misfits" like me.
Recently updated August 15, 2026 - Posted Dec 1, 2020
Nature Centers are landscape features that can service as tourist attractions in their local uniqueness, while being of benefit to local communities and "misfits" like me. I was out of college with a graduate degree in Computer Science, working and unfulfilled. After countless hours in front of computer screen under glaring fluorescent lights, my lunch hour was a respite. I would drive out of the industrial park to visit a nearby real park. This park featured woodlands, an orchard, a pond, and many walking trails. It also ran a nature center. I valued these lunch hours there, and several years later worked out an arrangement to work part-time on computers, so as to spend more time becoming a naturalist.
Besides park visits from families and school groups, there was also an assortment of misfits: neighborhood kids, part-timers, volunteers, and even a drop-off child. What did we do? We spent hours cleaning animal cages and pony stalls, assisting in environmental education programs like maple sugaring, and delving into personal projects of special interest. Special interests included: perfecting nature art illustration, practicing Native American technology like making arrow heads, and for me, working on native plant projects from plant rescues, to removing invasive, to brush pile burns.
Which reminds me of the time, after maple sugaring, going to my computer job smelling like smoke. Unknown to me, until someone asked, "Why do I smell smoke?" Oops. Getting back to my time in the park and its nature center.
All of our park time led to reshaping us, we lived within the changing seasons. We noticed birds and learned each had a different name and way of living life. We learned about the Long Island's natural communities. This became our new reality, so far removed from industrial parks, school bricked buildings, and residential streetscapes.
The nature center was Hoyt Farm Park Nature Preserve in Commack NY. Today, I'm helping to reestablish a trail/nature center —that's walkable from the Manorville shopping center. And remember those misfits? Well, many of them became environmental heroes.
