So I know I've been to Bendix Woods Park recently, but I haven't been in this space.

And if you haven't been over to the Nature Center, well, we have the reasons that you want to do, especially checking out the Discovery Center.

I have Hannah with me.

Thank you so much for joining me.

And this space has really made a transition.

Yes.

It's taken five years, really, since October of 2020 to sort of get the ball rolling on these renovations.

It sort of sat as it was for 30 years, and we thought it was time for new updates.

And it looks fabulous and it's so well done.

It's very bright.

It's very colorful.

Talk to us about the process of making the transition.

Yes, it started off as a simple project of updating a few things, and then it turned into a full blown demolition, new flooring, refactoring walls.

I feel like that happens anytime you do a renovation.

You pull up like the first layer of carpet, then you're like, oh, there's three layers of linoleum.

I don't have to work through.

Okay.

Especially.

And so it really started off as a small project, and then we saw how much we could do in this room, the space that we could really transform.

And it's turned into every inch of this room being updated.

I love it now.

Age ranges this space geared towards everybody.

So mostly kids.

But the the adults can have fun in here as well.

The funds not just for the kids.

So the first thing you'll notice when you walk in the room is just the carpeting.

Yeah.

So it's individual tiles, but we installed it to look like you're walking on a trail through forest.

So we have the brown tile sort of leading you to our forest in the back.

So from the start, it's interactive already, which is what I very well thought out.

I know you guys put a lot of energy into this too.

Yes, it was a whole staff effort on this one.

And volunteers as well.

And our construction crew, at the park did a lot of work in here as well, so it was a whole effort.

I love that, and let's talk briefly about, you know, what was the space before and why you wanted to expand that?

Yes.

So the space before it was about 30 years old.

And it was well-loved, but it was showing that age.

So if we sort of look along this wall where the green carpet was, that was a block of wall right there, and there were tanks in the wall.

We had our night world, which was a fabulous place.

A dark room that the people could go inside of.

And it was full of constellations and, everything sort of to do with nature at night.

But it blocked off almost a third of this room, so it became really tight and narrow.

So a lot of people were in here.

So our first, point of business really was knocking down that wall, clear it out to make a space more, just flows better.

It does.

Is very open, is very welcoming, is very bright.

Again, I love the colors.

Let's talk about some of the exhibits that we have in here, because I know you've some of the traditional ones.

They stayed right at the BES.

They were here before.

These were here before.

Okay.

Let me talk about the bees.

Yes.

Okay.

The bees was one of the first things that we did.

We have an active bee hive in here.

We call it our education hive.

So this is our actual bee hive.

We have a sign saying please don't open.

Bees are hard.

I work in there.

I don't have my EpiPen with me today, so don't open it.

But it is nice and closed off.

But the bees do have a tube with access to the outside because they do need to find food and water and do everything bees in there.

Do you have an important job here at the park?

Right?

Yes, a very important job.

So they are pollinators.

And so bees go from flower to flower, they get pollen, they help all of the plants talk to each other.

And bees are really important all across Indiana and the United States because they also help us get our food.

Like our our honey.

Yes.

So the really cool thing about this hive is we wanted people to see the bees going into it.

So on this side of our hive, we have a viewing window over here.

Oh, so these are the bees that are right inside of our hive.

Very work, very hard at work.

But we wanted people to be able to see the inside of the hive.

See the bees working.

Yeah.

Because normally you can see the inside of a high right.

Exactly.

So we, we took a little viewing window so that they can see that it's safe.

They say yes.

No, I love that this is still part of the bee hive exhibit here.

Yes.

So this was actually here before was.

Yes.

Yeah.

So this is a piece we brought back.

An intern actually had this idea and made it before I got here.

So this is one of the original pieces.

And it's interactive.

They can play sort of a nice tossing game of, beanbags where they learn about honey and pollen.

There's a crawl through element, which is very exciting, because every kid loves to crawl through something.

I know, I know, I'm very tempted.

I was going to start.

Oh, I asked, can we go?

Yes, we can we go through?

Okay.

Yes.

Let's talk about what this space is because this is amazing.

Are you coming, Hannah?

Oh, I'm coming behind you.

I love this space.

Now, this is what I'm talking about.

Well, we say all ages.

Yes, all ages especially.

Look at there's a little frond down there too.

Okay, this is the popular puzzle, and I cannot imagine that this is not popular.

This has to be right.

This is the most popular by far, and one of the best things.

It's interactive, but it's climbable.

And one of the biggest points of feedback were from our old Night World exhibit.

There was a tunnel that the kids could crawl through to get out of the night world.

Okay.

And that was our most important feedback from the public, is we want to crawl through something.

And so now we have a crawl through log.

And this is actually a native Indiana tree species, and we have a crawl through muskrat den.

Oh, well, and what about this over here?

Because this is I mean, this is beautiful.

I love the bing.

So this is my wander into the woods, and it looks like a mural.

But this is probably my favorite find because it's wallpaper.

So it's a realistic wallpaper that we were able to purchase.

And so we plastered it up on the wall and walking through our path leading us to our forest.

I wanted people to feel like they are standing in a forest.

Yes.

So wandering into the woods, they're immersing themselves in nature, but they're still inside a building.

But we have our windows looking out into our forest right behind the nature center, and we've added, critters and creatures and they're learning to.

You guys have all of the information here so people can learn more about it.

They can touch, you know, they can feel things.

They can look like at that, a leopard slug.

Okay, now, before we go, I have to try this, right?

Yes.

This is one of my favorite things I love these.

There's one of these at the zoo.

I'm not a very good jumper, but how far?

Who's the far?

This, that somebody jumped in here at least.

Maybe like five or so.

Do I have to run or stop?

So most people just sort of plant their feet, swing and go for it.

Oh.

Oh, like for an ass?

Yeah.

Pretty good, pretty good.

Father, you got a grasshopper?

There we go.

Perfect.

So there's great stuff to do.

When can people visit this space?

Yeah.

So the nature center in the Discovery Room is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.

to 4:30 p.m.. Even though it's during the workweek, there's still times where we can open it on.

And this place is free.

I mean, we have park entrance, you'll pay the park entrance, but this space is free to visit.

This is free.

Yep, I love that.

All right.

Thank you so much, Hannah.

Where can we get more information?

You can find more information at SJC parks.org.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for showing us around this.

Time to go climb.

Let's go.

Okay.