NatureFEST - A Celebration of the Outdoors
3/21/2018 9:37:54 AM
By Sherry Lucas
Bubbles, apparently, are short-lived anywhere and everywhere, except on the schedule for NatureFEST.
There, bubble-ology has latched on and lasted for about six years now, says Nicole Smith, event planner at the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks’ Mississippi Museum of Natural Science (MMNS) and self-professed “Bubble Queen of Mississippi.”
Her crowning achievement? “I have made a 20-foot-long bubble that was about 4½ feet wide,” she says, laughing merrily at the memory. “And, then I challenged the kids to see (if) they could do it.”
Her big bubble popped and vanished, as bubbles are wont to do. “But it’s impressive when you get them out there.”
The same holds true for the museum’s annual NatureFEST as a whole, where the outdoors entice with exploration and the indoors beckon with behind-the-scenes intrigue.
The combination museum birthday/festival/nature outing boasts an attendance of 1,500 to 1,700 (2,043 was an all-time high in 2012). NatureFEST also ranks as the museum’s longest-running event, and its second largest—surpassed only by Park After Dark, an event organized in conjunction with neighboring Mississippi Children’s Museum.
NatureFEST 2018 is April 7. The daylong nature celebration includes plants, animals, BioBlitz hikes, music, food trucks, and more on the museum’s grounds. Regular museum admission applies, and the festival is free for museum members.
The most significant nature event in the region pulls in entire families with fun for all, and engaging, accessible activities to pique interest in youngsters, oldsters, and everyone in-between.
“Like most of our events or activities, we’re trying to teach that conservation message,” says MMNS director Charles Knight. Yes, this is about conservation and wildlife, “but first and foremost we’re trying to entertain people, and give people a good family activity and bring people together.
“It’s entertainment. That’s a good way to bring people in, and then they learn conservation on top of that.”
Knight is happy if the takeaway is “just a little bit greater appreciation of the outdoors and nature,” he says. “If they don’t learn any facts, that’s fine—and it’s good if they do—but really, it’s just an appreciation and respect for what we have in this state.”
NatureFEST was born at the museum’s first anniversary (2001) as a “thank you” celebration—to legislators, sponsors, donors, partners, and the public—who had supported the museum for its opening year. Recalls retired education coordinator Martha Cooper: “We were ready and anxious to have the public come in and love it as much as we did. We really wanted people in Jackson and surrounding areas to realize what a jewel this little habitat was.”
For the 2018 edition, you can count on an animal show, a fossil component with the fossil pile open for exploration (and the paleontology lab on tour), exhibitors with interactive fun, archery from the Archery in Mississippi Schools program, oversized yard games, and a BioBlitz citizen science onsite species inventory. With the BioBlitz, pick your passion, sign up, and join the guided hike on the trails to find out what to look for, how to do the inventory, and learn more about favorites up close and personal.
“You may not be able to travel to Africa to see exotic birds, but … you’ve got birds in your backyard that are telling you a lot about their lives,” Smith says.
A main NatureFEST draw is the peek behind the scenes, where visitors gain a deeper appreciation for the collections and the real science going on at the site. “People sometimes forget that we are a research facility,” she says. “It’s really nice to remind them of that at NatureFEST.”
Knight is often struck by how excited families are to meet the scientists and see the work that goes on there.
“One of the main goals of what we’re trying to do here,” says Knight, “is to keep species from becoming endangered, and to recover those species that are already considered endangered.”
Scientists working there do that daily, adding to the science behind exhibits and education, and working across the state. Visitors see the collections, which include more than a million fish specimens.
“It’s almost like a library for people to use those specimens to see where we’ve been and where we’re going, and try to recover these species, and try to prevent species from becoming endangered,” Knight says.
There is plenty, too, for little kids, along with the nature theme.
Guided hikes on the trails, crafts to make, and animals to see—backyard and exotic varieties—are part of the appeal.
“There’s a large focus on the environment and the animals that inhabit that,” says Smith.
Yearly, she aims for the main headliner and two key secondary attractions that combine family entertainment and education, such as a magician (and the science behind magic) or perhaps the Mississippi Blues Rangers, a musical group of wildlife rangers.
Terry Vandeventer, a herpetology field associate, has been bringing The Living Reptile Museum, his educational program about Mississippi snakes, to NatureFEST since the event’s start. It is a significant way to reacquaint kids and adults with the outdoor world.
“What we’re finding in America is people are more afraid of wildlife today than they ever have been … because they’re so removed from it,” Vandeventer says. He bemoans a situation where many get their wildlife “education” from sensationalized animal encounters on TV.
NatureFEST shares accurate information he hopes will spur their curiosity. Weather permitting, his outdoor demonstration in the amphitheater enthralls kids and parents alike.
“I say, ‘We have copperheads. They’re all over the place. They’re right over there, and they’re right over there, and they’re right over there,’ and I’m pointing at the bleachers. And, people are starting to get uncomfortable,” he says, breaking into a laugh. “But, the point being, that they don’t bother anybody—no one gets bit by them or anything like that—but we’re out in nature, and we’re along the Pearl River.”
The key is instilling appreciation and curiosity for wildlife early on. “Kids love that stuff. Kids love snakes and lizards and roly-polies and tadpoles,” Vandeventer says. His program’s parting shot? “No child left indoors.”
Arty attendees can check out the Mississippi Wildlife Federation's specialty class, this year concentrating on mosaics with Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi member Corley Marsalis. One workshop will focus on kids, creating owl mosaics with rocks, and the other, for adults, will use glass and mosaic tiles to make owls. Register for either workshop at mswildlife.org (under Events). The workshop cost includes museum admission.
Greatest hit activities, such as Bubble-ology’s big fun, tend to camp out on the NatureFEST schedule for years.
“We wanted a really fun, very interactive thing for little kids to do that wasn’t environmentally toxic, without a lot of non-consumables” Smith says. She added Bubble-ology when she was still a naturalist at the museum, adapting her class on the science of making bubbles, into a festival version—“this little sound bite of science that you do with the making of bubbles.” It lasts for an instant, gets a grin and a squeal, and imparts a little bit of knowledge, too.
“There’s something nice in an ephemeral form of art,” she says.
There is something nice, too, in an enduring staple of science. Playfully and practically, NatureFEST covers both.
Sherry Lucas is a freelance writer for Mississippi Outdoors.
