Business Description
The Dickinson County Nature Center is where families can explore, learn and foster an appreciation of our natural world. It is open year-round and is a mecca for environmental learning and fun. There is always something to see and do, whether it be a visiting exhibit or some of our permanent displays.
Our permanent exhibits include:
• Live animal ambassadors, including turtles, tiger salamanders, snapping turtles, a northern leopard frog, an American toad, a hedgehog, snakes and more.
• Just Bee indoor bee hive
• Indoor wetland complex and walk-through bat cave
• Fox burrow crawl-through tunnel
• Okoboji Osprey replica nest and 24-hour nest camera
• Prairie Roots
• Backyard Birding
• eARTh exhibit area
• Explore Your Playful Nature kids play area
The Dickinson County Nature Center also offers year-round programming. Take part in summer camps, Nature Tots, Birding on the Green, Hike the Wild and special events like the annual Earth Day Celebration and Bee & Butterfly Festival the first Friday of September.
The nature center also features a Nature Store with unique gifts and outdoor activities. Purchase discs for the Okoboji Gold Disc Golf Course, souvenir nature center T-shirts, local honey, wildlife field guides and goat’s milk soaps and lotions.
Outside the nature center, in Kenue Park, you will find the Nature Playscape playground complete with climbing tree stumps, an underground tunnel, a swinging bridge and places to build with natural elements. You can go geocaching on our Ranger Rick geocache trails or play on the 18-hole Okoboji Gold Disc Golf Course. Each summer you can also visit Pollinator Paradise and the Westport Schoolhouse. Kenue Park also has bike and hiking trails, an observation tower, gardens, restored wetlands with two rehabilitated trumpeter swans, prairie trails and an oak savanna.
You can find out more and see the year’s schedule of events on our website or by calling. The Dickinson County Nature Center is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday (Labor Day-Memorial Day) and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday (Memorial Day-Labor Day) at 2279 170th St., Okoboji, just a half-mile off of Highway 71. Admission is always free!
Our permanent exhibits include:
• Live animal ambassadors, including turtles, tiger salamanders, snapping turtles, a northern leopard frog, an American toad, a hedgehog, snakes and more.
• Just Bee indoor bee hive
• Indoor wetland complex and walk-through bat cave
• Fox burrow crawl-through tunnel
• Okoboji Osprey replica nest and 24-hour nest camera
• Prairie Roots
• Backyard Birding
• eARTh exhibit area
• Explore Your Playful Nature kids play area
The Dickinson County Nature Center also offers year-round programming. Take part in summer camps, Nature Tots, Birding on the Green, Hike the Wild and special events like the annual Earth Day Celebration and Bee & Butterfly Festival the first Friday of September.
The nature center also features a Nature Store with unique gifts and outdoor activities. Purchase discs for the Okoboji Gold Disc Golf Course, souvenir nature center T-shirts, local honey, wildlife field guides and goat’s milk soaps and lotions.
Outside the nature center, in Kenue Park, you will find the Nature Playscape playground complete with climbing tree stumps, an underground tunnel, a swinging bridge and places to build with natural elements. You can go geocaching on our Ranger Rick geocache trails or play on the 18-hole Okoboji Gold Disc Golf Course. Each summer you can also visit Pollinator Paradise and the Westport Schoolhouse. Kenue Park also has bike and hiking trails, an observation tower, gardens, restored wetlands with two rehabilitated trumpeter swans, prairie trails and an oak savanna.
You can find out more and see the year’s schedule of events on our website or by calling. The Dickinson County Nature Center is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday (Labor Day-Memorial Day) and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday (Memorial Day-Labor Day) at 2279 170th St., Okoboji, just a half-mile off of Highway 71. Admission is always free!