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Drop in year-round for free, fun, hands-on family activities designed for your family to do together at your own pace. Celebrate the changing seasons with a different activity each month such as tasting maple syrup, planting a mini-garden, cooking a fresh treat from the garden, glimpsing the inside of a flower through a microscope, decorating pumpkins, and discovering the secrets of fall color. Enjoy the fascinating world of plants and how they affect our daily lives.
Saturdays and Sundays, November 7-29, noon - 4:00 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission member/$FREE with gate admission non-member, All Levels, Hands-on, Learning Center
What kind of foliage did plant eating dinosaurs munch on? Stop by the Learning Center to meet some living fossils, prehistoric plants from the days of the Diplodocus. Look at spores and cones up close with the scope-on-a-rope. Create your own fern print on cotton cloth, hunt for prehistoric plants in the greenhouse, and plant a prehistoric plant to take home with you.
Saturdays and Sundays, December 5-27, noon - 4:00 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission member/$FREE with gate admission non-member, All Levels, Hands-on, Learning Center
Celebrate the season with a freshly-baked treat! How many different plants will you use when you decorate your gingerbread house? Create a scratch-and-sniff greeting card and find spices in the greenhouse. Plant a ginger root for your winter windowsill.
(Jan 2010 weekend family activities)
Saturdays and Sundays, Jan. 2 - 31 noon - 4 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission members/$FREE with gate admission non-members, All Levels, Hands-On, Limit 200, Learning Center
Turn that crank, twist that dough-into the oven and out for a flavor-filled homemade snack! While your pretzel is baking, find out about Minnesota's grain growing and milling history. Take a close look at grains and discover the differences between the grains we use to bake everything from cakes to hearty whole wheat bread.
(Feb 2010 weekend family activities)
Saturdays and Sundays, Feb. 6-28 noon - 4 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission members/$FREE with gate admission non-members, All Levels, Hands-On, Limit 200, Learning Center
Escape winter in the warm greenhouse! Search for orchids and other beauties in bloom. Bake orchid flavored cookies and discover the secrets of one of the largest families of flowering plants in the world. Examine orchids up close with microscopes. Learn techniques that you can use to create a detailed botanical illustration of your favorite orchid to take home.
(March 2010 weekend family activities)
Saturdays and Sundays, March 6-28 noon - 4 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission members/$FREE with gate admission non-members, All Levels, Hands-On, Limit 200, Learning Center
Celebrate the arrival of spring with the sweet sap of sugar maples. Can you tell the difference between real and artificial maple syrup? Take a maple taste test challenge. Learn how to recognize a maple tree from its twig, even before the tree leafs out. Make a maple keepsake to take home. Grab a map and follow the path from sap to syrup on self guided hike.
(April 2010 weekend family activities)
Saturdays and Sundays, April 3-25 noon - 4 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission members/$FREE with gate admission non-members, All Levels, Hands-On, Limit 200, Learning Center
Have you heard the buzz about bees? Discover who lives in a hive, and what jobs they do. Find out about garden V.I.P.s, (Very Important Pollinators). Sample a taste of sweet comb honey and make your own beeswax lip balm. Create a nature journal to take along on a woodland wildflowers walk and pot up flowers to feed the pollinators in your garden at home.
(May 2010 weekend family activities)
Saturdays and Sundays, May 1-30 noon - 4 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission members/$FREE with gate admission non-members, All Levels, Hands-On, Limit 200, Learning Center
Sunflowers! Butter, bread, cooking oil, livestock feed, biodiesel, and birdseed have all been made from these beautiful sunny flowers. Try your hand at pounding toasted sunflower seeds into a delicious sunbutter treat. Can you grow a record size sunflower? Find out how to grow ‘em big and select some seeds to plant. On May 22nd join in weaving with plants as we celebrate the grand opening of Stickworks For All, a new outdoor create-space.
(June 2010 weekend family activities)
Saturdays and Sundays, June 5-27 noon - 4 p.m.
$FREE with gate admission members/$FREE with gate admission non-members, All Levels, Hands-On, Limit 200, Learning Center
Let your creativity shine as you create art from plants. Weave, bend, and shape a twig trellis. Plant your own version of Jack's beanstock to climb up your trellis. Play outside in the new outdoor create-space, Stickworks For All, where you can add your creative energy to the works in progress. When you are ready to refuel, visit the Harvest Kitchen and make a plant powered snack fresh from the garden.
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