The Louisville Nature Center (LNC) is a small nonprofit facility in Louisville, Kentucky. It features a 41-acre urban forest with more than two miles of light hiking trails and a bird blind just four miles south of downtown Louisville. The LNC is in close proximity to the Louisville Zoo and is easily accessible by local residents. It also features an educational center that hosts frequent public events, nature programming, and environmental field trips and camps for hundreds of school children every month.
In 2012, TACF and the LNC entered into a partnership to place four B3F3 trees in Louisville’s Metro Parks System in different soil types to see how they perform. The LNC waters the trees and helps monitor their progress. Some of the trees have thrived and produced nuts, and their progress continues to be monitored. There is a three-panel educational placard installed at the site of one of the trees.
As part of its ongoing educational efforts with local schools, the LNC has launched a one-minute video series called “Take a Minute.” Each video covers a different nature topic and features a new student every time. Sometimes students attending field trips will be recruited to be the narrator. The video series was conceived of and is recorded and edited by LNC board member Patrick Fitzgerald. He also works with local high school students to learn how to record and produce the video series. The latest four topics in the video series have been box turtles, trails, spiders, and chestnut trees. The series tag line usually has the narrator conclude by saying “you might see something really cool, and it only takes a minute.”
The video featuring The American Chestnut Foundation is narrated by 5th grade Lincoln Elementary Student, Jake Winfrey. Jake had been in a Cub Scout Pack led by Patrick. The video tells the story of the chestnut blight and the efforts to restore the trees to prominence. Check out the video below!
