NATURE CENTER ON CONSERVATION AGENDA

The project just seems like a natural. Cape Girardeau County wants to be home of the next Missouri Department of Conservation Nature Center. It would be both a tourist attraction and a hands-on educational learning center for the entire region.

Wait a minute? Isn't there already a nature center in the spacious Cape County Park North? It's been called a nature center. It's actually more of an office building with a few interpretative displays and a couple of trails out back.

The proposed nature center would be much more, providing educational opportunities for kindergarteners through college. Classrooms would be built as part of the center with Southeast Missouri State University professors on staff to oversee research efforts.

Some of the ideas discussed for the nature center include interactive exhibits, outdoor classrooms and habitat areas, hiking trails and environmental exhibits, educational programs for all ages, an auditorium or outdoor amphitheater, a living history exhibit, earthquake simulator, displays on waterways in the region and an indoor multimedia classroom. The possibilities are exciting.

Hours could be expanded to attract more visitors on the weekends and evenings as well.

The proposed nature center would cost between $4 million and $5 million. The county would pay for the project up front, and then the state would pay it back through a lease-purchase agreement.

The county would donate the land and has bought additional property adjacent to the park that could be developed into more trails as part of the project. If everything goes as planned, ground could be broken for this next-generation nature center in 2000.

The Missouri Conservation Commission will consider the project at its meeting Sept. 25 in Cassville. County officials will be on hand to make their pitch.

This nature center would be a wonderful asset for the entire region.