Hi everyone.

My name is Hannah and I'm a naturalist here at Bendix Woods County Park and we are in one of my favorite locations inside of our nature center, our discovery room.

So I'll take you around the room a little bit and show you how any park patrons or kids, families alike, can enjoy the space and learn about Indiana's natural history.

So the first thing we have over here is one of my favorites.

It is our beehive.

It came from our discovery room before our renovation took place.

And in here we have a live beehive.

And what's really cool is we have a tube that goes outside so the bees have access to outside.

But you can still see the bees that are moving through the tube.

And as they come in and out and as we go around the other side.

My other favorite part of this, we wanted to make this as educational as possible.

So we have a viewing window that looks at the inside of the hive.

So right here we can see all of our bees very hard at work.

If you look past all of the bees in there, you can actually see the honeycomb that is filled with honey in the background.

That is their food for the winter as we're starting to get into the colder seasons.

But it's not just for viewing.

It's also for learning in here.

This space has educational pictures and, different things on the wall where anybody can learn about the life cycle of a honeybee, what their jobs are inside the hive, and why are they so important?

So as well as interacting with the environment, we also have some fun in play here too.

So you can toss bean bags back and forth to learn about honey and pollination production.

You can also climb through the tunnels and have a little bit of fun yourself.

Now, the great thing about this room is we're all focused on Indiana and Indiana's natural history and most importantly, the habitats.

So we're learning about pollination over here.

And as we wander through our discovery room, we come upon our pond habitat over here.

Now, this was a big effort.

It's been built for about a year now, but it took me four years of planning to get this whole exhibit right here at our feet and our popular ponds program is our most important school program.

So we wanted to feature a pond inside this discovery room, but not just feature it.

We want you to feel like you're in the pond itself.

So as we look at the floor, we have a special designed floor.

That is all of the invertebrates, the animals, the tadpoles and the frogs that you can find right here living in Indiana ponds.

We have a pond turtle that is right here that kids can climb on and experience being a turtle.

But most importantly, we have things you can crawl through.

So one of my favorites is our Muskrat Lodge over here.

So muskrats are very important creatures in our Indiana ponds.

And they build really big homes.

And why don't I crawl through it?

Because of the funds.

Not just for the kids here in the Discovery Room.

It's for the adults, too.

And not only can you crawl through things.

One of the favorite things for the kids to do is climb on top.

So this is pretty sturdy as a muskrat lodge.

And it was built for interaction because one of the most important things in our nature center, our discovery room for kids learning about nature, interacting with it.

It was just lines on a wall.

Words they could read on a wall.

It's really great information, but having something that they can play with and play inside of is even better.

So as we move through our ponds, you might have noticed that our floor has a bit of a pattern to it.

And that's as you start walking through the room, there is a brown trail that leads you to our forest.

So I wanted to make this interactive and pull you all the way to the end of the room as you wander into the woods with me.

So our back wall has wallpaper on it to make you feel like you're inside of a forest.

We have an overlook rail right here, but the special things are on the other side of that rail.

So we have all of our native Indiana wildlife.

There's different rocks and boulders.

The plants that you can find out in nature.

And then these signs help you learn about what you can find right here in the Bendix Woods forests.

So we have lots of different spring wildflowers that are very popular here.

The different animals that you can find and what's under the logs if you lift up the logs here.

But one of the most important things is we have a dedicated nature preserve here at Bendix Woods.

So as we walk over to this side, this tells you all about the history of the Bendix Woods Nature Preserve and why it is such a treasure.

There's not many nature preserves left, and what's really cool about ours is we are an old growth forest.

So we have really, really old trees.

Some are even 200 years old and one, possibly 300 years old in our nature preserve.

So teaching people about our nature preserve why nature is important will help them conserve nature in the future.

And with all of this and learning, we do still have to have a little bit of fun.

So if you follow me to the other side of the wall here, one of my favorites.

How far can you jump?

Let's see.

Do we think I can jump as far as a grasshopper or maybe a bullfrog?

Let's find out.

So this is feet on the ground.

Get ready.

About five feet.

About how tall I am.

So that was pretty good.

So farther than a grasshopper can jump, but a bullfrog can jump farther than I can.

Now, this is a really, really special place inside this discovery room because it's not just our nature center here at Bendix Woods.

It is our Studebaker clubhouse, a historic building here at the park.

And next year is our 100th anniversary of this building.

So in the fall, we're going to be hosting a really special event celebrating this building.

The history of this land and why this space is so important.

If you would like to learn more about Bendix Woods County Park or any of our other county park locations, you can visit us online.