Since schools and the public can’t visit Springbrook State Park for field trips and other programming this spring, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources is bringing the outdoors to them online.

DNR Executive Officer Michelle Wilson says southwest region’s two full-time naturalists Christina Roeloffs, and Anne Riordan, who’s based at Springbrook, have “turned lemons into lemonade” as social distancing has cancelled their spring in-person events, to film 2-5 minute long educational videos at the state parks, and upload them to a Google Drive folder for any area teacher to use at their disposal, “Our goal was to try to get nature still integrated and help give teachers to give something visual to help them work with their classes. And both Christina and Anne have been receiving lots of great comments back from teachers and it’s actually been really fun to read some of those on how innovative the teachers are being with those videos for creative homework assignments that they’re doing with the kids.”

Wilson says DNR staff are currently building a webpage to host the videos and activities for the public to enjoy even after the COVID-19 threat diminishes. In the meantime, anyone who would like access to these videos can email anne.riordan@dnr.iowa.gov.