Kids Holiday Gift Making

Willow Bend Environmental Education Center is excited to host a gift making program for children. This free event is on December 6th between 10 am and 2 pm at Willow Bend Environmental Education Center (703 East Sawmill Rd.) Visitors may drop in anytime between 10 am and 2pm.

Join Willow Bend as we make fun holiday gifts out of natural and/or reusable materials. We will be making gifts such as picture frames and dream catchers. We will also have several other fun gift making projects and all supplies will be provided.

Why make a gift out of recycled or natural materials? It’s environmentally friendly since you may be preventing something from going to the landfill; there are few resources consumed in the making of your gift; it allows for creativity; it will be a one-of-a-kind gem that someone will cherish; and it’s free!

This event is part of the ongoing Family Science Series hosted monthly at Willow Bend Environmental Education Center. At Willow Bend’s programs parents and children learn together and explore nature through interactive games and presentations on different natural history topics.

The series is sponsored by Mountain Sports.

This event is free but a $5 donation is gladly accepted.

New Annual Report

Willow Bend completed its fiscal year on June 30th and we have highlighted some of our key programs from last year in our recently completed annual report. It is loaded with lots of colorful pictures illustrating what we do best: bring people together for learning about their environment.

For example, you can learn about our partnership with the Flagstaff Area National Monuments and FUSD classes featuring classroom programs about the human and geologic history of Walnut Canyon, Sunset Crater Volcano, and Wupatki National Monuments and field trips to the monuments. This year – thanks to funding from the National Park Foundation – we deepened that partnership through a project working with three 4^th-grade classes across Flagstaff.

We’ve also included an article about our restoration work and new demonstration area; and highlighted one of our volunteers, Kathleen Satterfield, that has worked on the plantings in the new mulched terrace. Plus there’s a whole lot more!

Bring Your Invasive Weeds to Willow Bend – 3rd Sunday all Summer!

Do you have a mystery plant growing in your yard or field? Is it taking over? Is it a noxious or invasive weed, or a native plant? How can you tell the difference? If you’re not sure, then drop in and talk with an expert.

The San Francisco Peaks Weed Management Area (SFPWMA), now in its 14^th year, will hold Bring-Your-Weeds-to-Willow Bend days once a month through September at Willow Bend. If you bring your “suspect,” a representative or two from the SFPWMA will try to identify your plant for you and tell you if it is a “bad guy” or not to worry. If it is a “bad guy,” we will give you tips on how to manage it. If you are interested, we’ll also have information about local volunteer weed groups in your area that are working on restoration projects and improving their neighborhood environment.

Please – drop in and visit!

Sundays, 10 am to 2 pm
15 June
20 July
17 August
21 September

NEW Watershed and Terrain Model

It’s here! Our NEW Watershed and Terrain Model has arrived and it is a must see. Many months of planning and plotting what features to include and/or label has resulted in a beautiful realistic 3-Dimensional representation of Flagstaff and surrounding regions. Some of features included are:

Watershed boundaries
Riparian areas
Water wells
Major utility lines
Arizona Watchable Wildlife sites
Springs
K-12 schools
Topographic features
and so much more…

You can drop in to see it anytime we are open (M-F: 9-4 and Summer Saturdays: 10-2. Admission to Willow Bend is FREE, but your donations help a lot so please consider contributing a suggested admission of $5 to our donation jar when you visit. Or support our work by becoming a Member of Willow Bend. Thank you!

Currently we are working on a system to facilitate bringing the model to schools and community events. Please contact us for scheduling and associated fees.

Thanks very much to The Wildland Trekking Company for supporting this project, and a special thanks to Norm Lowe and Collis Lovely for their many hours compiling information and discussing ideas.

Mulched Terrace

As part of our Earth Day celebration this past Saturday, we adopted a technique from Brad Lancaster’s book, Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Vol. 2. The focus of the project is to redirect rainwater into an area where it is challenging for vegetation to become established – the hillslope below Willow Bend and Sawmill Park. The slope faces south, is fairly steep, and has many areas of disturbed and bare soil, and some invasive weed problems. With a grant from the Arizona Forestry Division’s Community Challenge Grant Program with funds from the USDA Forest Service, we started this work and expect to continue in small, manageable sections.

We chose an area near the southwest corner of our building where we already have some small rainwater collection barrels. These barrels frequently overflow in heavy precipitation events and it is the overflow that we aim to capture and redirect. We are fortunate for the hard work of the volunteer crew from the American Conservation Experience that completed the digging and leveling, while friend and volunteer Norm Lowe has been working on the piping, and others helped move woodchip mulch into the terrace.

Toward the end of our rainy season we will select trees and shrubs to plant in the new terrace. We will create some shade, healthy soil and improve the habitat before moving on to another section.

Please drop by to take a look and gather ideas for how something similar could be used to capture rainwater at your home or neighborhood to rejuvenate areas with a drink of free water.

Healthy Trees

Hugging a tree probably won’t improve its health too much, but come join us to learn what will! The first in our series of programs and presentations about tree maintenance education is set for Saturday, March 29, from 9am-12pm. The “Tree Care and Maintenance Workshop” will be presented by two local experts: Mick Henry of Mick’s Tree Service, and Tom Hanecak, Maintenance & Operations Manager for Coconino County Parks & Recreation. Both are ISA certified arborists and will be sharing their tips as they lead the group through the demonstration site that surrounds Willow Bend – Sawmill County Park. There is a wide variety of trees in the Park, and after a walking preview of the program with the arborists, we know that there will be plenty to talk about. In this hands-on guided tour you will learn about planting the right tree in the right place, ideas for mulching, how and when to prune, common pests and diseases that affect our northern Arizona trees, watering and much more. Sign up here and be sure to bring a friend, a snack and some water!

The presentation is just one component of our project supported by a grant through the Arizona Forestry Division’s Community Challenge Grant Program with funds from the USDA Forest Service. We’ll also be building a mulched terrace on the slope below Willow Bend with help from our friends at the American Conservation Experience. We will redirect rainwater from storage tank overflow into a terrace showing how a properly mulched and graded terrace can be used by native vegetation to absorb excess rainwater and aid in its infiltration into the soils. This will be another aspect of our building and site that helps us continue to serve as a demonstration area for community education. The idea for this comes right out of a fabulous book by Brad Lancaster (more on Brad’s upcoming visit to Willow Bend for a fundraising presentation on May 17th coming soon, so stay tuned…registration and tickets will be available soon!)

Part 3 of the project will be a new portable display about the trees of the Flagstaff region including tree cookies, borings, and information about each tree’s habitat and health issues. Willow Bend’s AmeriCorps volunteer Joe Zofrea is designing the display and receiving some generous and most welcome assistance with samples and technical info from our friends at the Rocky Mountain Research Station. This will be a great component for the many family friendly community events we attend.

This past summer the forests of northern Arizona experienced an event that has not occurred since 1919 – a wide-spread ponderosa pine seedling regeneration. Triggered by a heavy cone drop in the fall of 2012 and an unusually wet summer in 2013, some areas of the forest were covered with 1-2 inch seedlings. Our final program will feature NAU Forestry professor Tom Kolb who will come to Willow Bend to talk about this unusual event. We’ll take a short walk from Willow Bend and look for these little saplings and discuss the importance of mitigation before they get too big!

Eagles

The Family Science Series at Willow Bend is an important part of our educational strategy: involving parents is key to a successful education system. Plus, family learning is fun and effective. Parents enjoy seeing their children find something that excites them, and kids learn what is important by seeing what their parents find interesting.

Our Eagles program a few weeks ago was full to capacity and is a great example of how our Family Science programs work. We are lucky to have great partners to work with that make these programs possible: a big thank-you to the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the Liberty Wildlife, and to Mountain Sports-Flagstaff – our series sponsor. To see what happens at a Family Science event at Willow Bend, check out this great video produced by the Arizona Game and Fish Department about our Eagles Event:

Our next Family Science event is “Arizona Animals” on Saturday, March 8th from 10-11:30 PM. Learn more and sign-up here: willowbendcenter.org/public-programs_family-science.html

The Moon Tree at Frances Short Pond

Post by Willow Bend Environmental Education Center.

Kids Learn Sustainability – Then and Now

Post by Willow Bend Environmental Education Center.

Kids Holiday Gift Making Event

Join us at Willow Bend Environmental Center From 10:00am to 2:00pm December 7th.

Need holiday gift ideas? Join Willow Bend as we make fun holiday gifts out of reusable materieals. Linda Kranz will be showing us how to make amazing rock paintings just like in her books. We will also have a few other fun gift making projects. Supplies are provided. Drop in event-No reservation needed.This event is free but a $5 donation is gladly accepted. Brought to you by Mountain Sports.