Sky Meadows State Park
The Sky Meadows State Park’s Nature Explore Classroom remains the main feature of our Children’s Discovery Area. This area is accessible to all park visitors and is a key part of our picnic area and the Virginia Master Naturalists Outdoor Laboratory. The park continues to use the “Five Year Sustainability & Growth Plan” (created in 2022) to guide maintenance and new features. This aids the park in allocating resources to enhance this area. New additions to the classroom this year included a climbable spider web in the Animal Athletes station, new moveable tools like toy wheelbarrows and digging implements, and routine maintenance like mulching and structural repairs.
This year we used the Outdoor Classroom as the location of guided interpretive programs for National Kids to Parks Day in May and National TRACK Trails Day in August. We also offered a ranger-led hike to and from the Nature Explore Classroom as part of our New Year’s Day “First Day Hikes” offerings. We also featured the Outdoor Classroom in a promotional video now available through the Virginia State Parks YouTube page and the park’s website. In the coming year, we plan to continue many of the same interpretive programs and outreach events promoting the classroom. We also plan to add programming geared towards children and families such as expanded Spring Break programming in April and a Junior Rangers Summer Camp program in July. To recap the learning stations of our outdoor classroom; they are “The Orchard, Poplar Art, Barnyard Band, Animal Athletes, Farm Field Fun and Frontier Settlement.”
