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Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/26/2025
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Cost: FREE

Categories


This program brings free, family-friendly fun to parks across the city! Beginning on June 3 and continuing on weekdays until Aug. 9, these activities offer a range of experiences that focus on connecting with nature and learning about our environment. Together, we’ll create art with natural pigments, enjoy storytelling sessions, discover local plants and wildlife, and more!

Time: 10 a.m. – noon, Tuesday – Saturday
Recommended Ages: These events are designed to accommodate a wide age range and are suitable for children from K-12th grade. Adults are also welcome!

Circle of Life – Weeks 1 & 6

Experience the interconnected wonders of nature where wildlife, birds, and fungi reveal their secrets through engaging, hands-on adventures!

Amazing Animals – Meet some neat creatures living in the park and learn about their habitats, life cycles, and survival strategies!

Birds of a Feather – Stop. Listen. Look, a bird! Join us as we learn their calls, seek them out, and craft our very own binoculars to take home.

Fungi Foray: A Park Exploration – Uncover the hidden world of fungi, marvel at the diversity of mushrooms and lichen, and learn how humans cultivate these fascinating organisms!

Amphibia! – Frogs, toads, salamanders, newts! Come learn about their development cycles, leap like a frog, and experience the wonderful world of amphibians.

Rainbows & Magical Creatures – Have you ever wondered how rainbows form in the sky? Let’s make our very own spectroscopes to observe the science behind rainbows and solve this mystery! We’ll also meet narwhals, nymphs, axolotls, and other dazzling creatures, real and imagined, who’ll help us understand the wild ways light and color appear across nature’s spectrum.

Garden Guild – Weeks 2 & 7

Follow the journey of your food from seed to table! Come get your hands dirty as we dig into the summer season and learn how to plant a garden that benefits both you and the environment.

Pollinators & Other Bug Friends – Craft a bug hotel to provide a home for the beneficial insects in your garden while learning about Lexington’s pollinators and other friendly bugs!

Seed Savvy – Learn how plants grow from tiny seeds! We’ll get to know their shapes and sizes, build our plant vocabulary, and create fun, seed-inspired crafts.

Worms at Work – Transform food scraps into nutrient-rich soil for your garden in this vermicomposting workshop, and take home your own wormery to observe the process in action!

Strong as a Tree – Let’s learn what helps trees stand tall, from their roots to their branches, and how they live through storms and change. We’ll honor their strength by making a nature-based craft using fallen wood and sticks.

Food For Thought – Come learn how flowers transform into the foods we eat! Along the way, we’ll build our understanding of botany through hands-on observation and a few familiar snacks.

Earth Lab – Weeks 3 & 8

Embrace your inner scientist as we experiment with solar power, unearth Lexington’s geological mysteries, and more! Get hands-on experience with scientific tools and leave with a deeper understanding of the unique environment around us.

A Drop of Water – Water is essential to living in a healthy ecosystem. Join us as we investigate the waters in the park, and learn-by-playing about maintaining fish populations.

Magnets & Migration – Let’s go on a treasure hunt through the park to learn about compasses and strengthen our navigation skills. Along the way, we’ll observe how magnets work and how animals sense Earth’s magnetic field to find their way across great distances.

The Power of the Sun: Solar Snacks – Let’s learn how to harness the sun’s power to cook up a tasty treat in our very own solar ovens! We’ll observe how sunlight becomes energy for cooking, growing, and everyday life.

When Water Floats – Join us as we learn how clouds form in the sky and where they go. We’ll observe how water vapor creates the airiness of clouds, the sweat on our cups, the ‘smoke’ in the mountains, fog on a cold morning, and more.

Caves, Rocks & Fossils – Unearth Kentucky’s geological mysteries as we take a closer look at different kinds of rocks, learn how they change over time in the rock cycle, and find out how fossils and caves form over time.

Nature Crafts Weeks 4 & 9

Let nature be your muse as we paint with foraged pigments, mold our own clay, and transform upcycled materials into beautiful works of art! Connect with Lexington through artistic expression, and take home unique creations that showcase your creativity.

Earthbenders – Learn how to process ordinary dirt into extraordinary pottery, and much more! In this hands-on workshop, we’ll see how people around the world use earth to build not just pots, but entire houses. From adobe to cob, we’ll learn about the natural building methods that have been used for thousands of years to create strong, beautiful, and lasting homes that are better for the planet.

Park Palette – The natural world is full of color, texture, and inspiration, if you know where to look. Learn how to make art from the colors you find in rocks, plants, and soil!

Trash to Treasure – Refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, and upcycle! ♻️ Give dumpster-bound items new life as we get creative with old clothes, plastic bags, newspaper, and more through hands-on reimagining.

Grown Fashion – Create your own doll or figurine, then design outfits for them using leaves, flowers, and other natural materials we gather in the park!

Wild Playdough – Join us as we mix up our own playdough, then use sticks, leaves, seeds, and other bits of nature to sculpt fun animal creations!

People and Parks – Weeks 5 & 10

Join us on a walk through the park as we learn how to be good stewards to all of its inhabitants, from the towering trees to the fragrant flowers, chirping birds, crawling critters, and each other.

Once Upon a Park – Come take a stroll through the park to hear some local folklore and learn how to create your own nature stories!

Tree Huggers – Spend time with the trees of Lexington as we learn about their beauty, importance, and the ways we’re connected. Through fun, hands-on activities, we’ll build relationships with these pillars of natural world and deepen our care for the land we share.

Little Worlds – Create a miniature version of your local park using recycled and natural materials to capture the magic of its many little worlds. As we build, we’ll learn how parks are full of habitats and microhabitats – places where animals, insects, and plants live and thrive. From leaf piles to puddles, we’ll notice the small spaces that support life and imagine how to care for them in both real life and in our models.

Stone Soup – Inspired by the classic folktale Stone Soup, this hands-on program centers on food, community, and care. Together, we’ll learn how we can build a more just and nourished world for the kids of today and tomorrow.

Special Events

Animals at Night – Bats, owls, moths, & more! Spend the evening with us learning about how animals live and thrive under the cloak of darkness.

Light Up the Night! – How do lightning bugs glow in the dark? Come learn about bioluminescence, the natural light produced by organisms, and marvel at its wonders firsthand at Jacobson Park.

Nature in Your Neighborhood End-of-Summer Party

Join us in celebrating the fourth year of Nature In Your Neighborhood! We’ve loved learning, playing, and growing with you this summer. Come out to enjoy games, crafts, snacks, music, prizes, and more! All ages are welcome.

August 9, 2025
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Dunbar Community Center

Event Website

Event Website:https://www.lexingtonky.gov/playing/parks-natural-areas/nature-your-neighborhood

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Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be cancelled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, or we can make mistakes.

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