Displaying items by tag: ijams educational program

Ijams Nature Center Executive Director Amber Parker poses with opossum Opal. She was an Ijams animal ambassador for more than three years. “She came to us after her mother was hit by a car and Opal would fit in the palm of your hand. Sadly, Opal passed away earlier this year. Opossums live short lives, usually about three years, so Opal had a nice long one by opossum standards. She was beloved by all and we miss her.” Courtesy Ijams Nature Center

Each year more than 600,000 people visit Ijams Nature Center

This is the second installment of an occasional series, Hellbent, profiling citizens who work to preserve and improve the Southern Appalachian environment.

KNOXVILLE — On any given day, the parking lot at Ijams Nature Center in South Knoxville is packed with cars, trucks, and buses as folks of all ages flock to hike, climb, swim and paddle its 300-plus acres of protected wildlands.

Making sure the center’s 620,000 or so annual visitors have a positive experience interacting with Mother Nature requires dozens of full-time employees plus a generous contingent of volunteers. Ensuring the complex operation stays on course and within its $1.8 million operating budget is a tough job, but Ijams Executive Director Amber Parker has been doing it for six years now and has no desire to be doing anything else.

When Amber talks about Ijams she fairly bursts with giddy, infectious energy. This is a woman who has clearly found her place in the world, and even a brief walk along any of the center’s 21 trails makes one wonder if the land itself hasn’t responded in like fashion to her devotion.

A child defends an elaborate stick fort at Ijams Natural Playscape, which opened this week at the South Knoxville nature center.  Ijams Nature Center

New Ijams playground reconnects kids with neighborhood woods, forts and creeks of yore

KNOXVILLE — Ijams Nature Center officially opened a portal into pure childhood beast mode this week.

The Ijams Nature Playscape at Grayson Subaru Preserve is specifically designed for young children to play in a creek, climb hills, dig, build, crawl and engage with nature in an organic, unstructured way. The new space features a large nest, tunnels, log steps and different rooms to play in.

“For generations, many of us had the opportunity to roam and play in the woods, empty lots and fields that surrounded our homes and neighborhoods,” Ijams Executive Director Amber Parker said. “We remember the freedom we had to use our imagination, test ourselves and become a part of the natural landscape, at least until we were called home for dinner.”

Martha, Elizabeth, Mary, and Josephine Ijams (from left) are seen in this 1923 photo. The girls were active in scouting and became accomplished naturalists early in life. Ijams Nature Center

Help give thanks across history to founders of the South Knoxville nature center and celebrate the addition of 3 acres

Cindy Hassil is a writer for Ijams Nature Center.

KNOXVILLE When H.P. and Alice Ijams purchased 20 acres of land along the Tennessee River in 1910, they couldn’t have known their family would still be contributing to the legacy that would become the 318-acre nonprofit Ijams Nature Center more than a century later. 

Ijams Nature Center will celebrate the contributions of the Ijams family and dedicate three acres of land recently donated to the nature center by H.P. and Alice’s granddaughter, Martha Kern, at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 28. The public is invited. 

The Fleurish fashion show will feature sustainable and stylish clothes to reduce your big old footprint on Earth.  Courtesy Fleurish/Ijams Nature Center

Help rock the catwalk at Ijams’ display of sustainable clothing

Cindy Hassil is a writer for Ijams Nature Center.

KNOXVILLE — Clothes can be a burden to both bear and wear. Ijams Nature Center offers fashionable alternatives with sustainability cred this month.

Ijams and Natural Alternatives Salon and Spa will present Fleurish: A Sustainable Fashion Event, from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday, April 24.

“Fleurish is a runway show focused on how sustainability, conservation and beauty intertwine and affect our lives … and our future,” Fleurish Creative Director Ben Prager said. “This event engages the audience in ways that will help the average consumer make changes in their day-to-day lives to better impact the planet while never losing sight of the beauty of nature and the human experience.”

Twelve local designers, along with hair stylists and makeup artists, are coming together to create looks using both recycled and natural materials.

Bats, birds and all winged creatures are the guests of honor at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville this weekend.

The center plans a celebration of science and our flighty friends from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

The educational event is open to all ages and will feature bird-banding demonstrations/projects; food trucks; guided walks; expert speakers; arts and crafts; and a chance to meet a number of raptors and animals native to East Tennessee. Citizen science demonstrations will show how anyone can contribute to the study and conservation of our natural world. 

You can get tickets online for the Hummingbird Festival and Celebration of Wings.

The 2021 Ijams Hummingbird Festival: Celebration of Wings is sponsored by Ergon Terminaling Inc., The Trust Company of Tennessee, WBIR-TV Channel 10, HomeTrust Bank, Stanley's Greenhouse, and Tennessee Wildlife Federation.

Members of a Covid-era outdoor education class at Ijams Nature Center net insects. The South Knoxville nature center weathered the Covid-19 pandemic with donations, federal loan guarantees and common-sense maneuvering, like moving all educational programming outside.  Photos courtesy Ijams Nature Center.

Ijams posted record visitation during pandemic even as resources were challenged

(This is the second in an occasional Hellbender Press series about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the natural world. Here's the first installment about air quality improvements in the Smokies.)

Individuals and organizations can learn a lot from a pandemic.

You up your technology game. You innovate and run harder and get leaner. You realize the importance of face time (the real face time). 

You learn the power of allies and those who really love you.

And in the case of Ijams Nature Center in South Knoxville, you learn just how much people need and value the natural world and the outdoors, especially in times of acute stress and uncertainty.

Ijams played host to a record number of visitors in 2020; there was no usual winter slowdown. Parking lots were full virtually every day during the height of the pandemic that claimed the lives of at least 600,000 people in the U.S. That visitation trend has continued at Ijams, with the coronavirus somewhat comfortably in the rear-view mirror.

An estimated 160,000 people visit the popular nature center annually, but there’s no exact count. Officials said the 2020 visitation substantially surpassed that number, and they plan a visitation study because a very “porous border” prevents an accurate count.

“The one great thing that has come out of Covid, is that people have recognized the importance of nature in their lives; they’ve recognized it as a place for solace, a place to get out and be safe and feel comfortable,” said Ijams Nature Center Executive Director Amber Parker. 

“The sheer mass number of people coming were new to Ijams, or maybe come once or twice coming multiple times a week,” said Ijams Development Director Cindy Hassil.

“We were so excited to be this refuge for everyone,” Parker added.

The two women spoke on a sunny spring afternoon on the fetching expanse of stone terrace behind the visitors center in the shade of tulip poplars, red buds and dogwoods. Cardinals chirped and early 17-year cicadas throbbed behind a natural green curtain.