Earth Discovery Center
Hours
Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm
Sunday 1pm-5pm
Closed Mondays
Free with park admission!
Links
5901 Delong Road Indianapolis, IN 46254
317.327.7148
The old original nature center, now known as the Ornithology Center, attracted around 40,000 guests per year, and only had the capacity to hold one classroom of students. Now, the larger building caters to over 80,000 annual visitors and hosts thousands of students every year on field trips to learn about the natural world.
As soon as you walk in, it’s very likely you’ll be greeted by some sort of creature! That might be a snail, or during the summertime, you can even catch the morphing of a caterpillar into a monarch butterfly right at the front desk. Inside the center you’ll find exhibits and information about native Indiana plants and animals, including aquariums with live native reptiles, fish, and amphibians, taxidermy mounts, and replicas. Other wildlife educational ambassadors may make appearances at scheduled program times. When you venture outside, you can take in a beautiful view of the reservoir out on the deck, or hop on the nearby hiking trails.
As well as field trips, naturalists host over 100 nature-based public programs, events, and summer day camps. For a current list of Eagle Creek programs, please visit this Indy Parks page.
Weekly Activities
Wildflower Weekend
Welcome spring with a weekend of guided hikes and programs to enjoy and learn about the beautiful wildflowers of Eagle Creek Park!
This event takes place in mid-April with a detailed schedule available by mid-March at www.indyparks.org.
Celebration of Nature
This annual exhibit showcases local artists and nature-themed paintings, photography, sculpture, wood-carving, and more! Celebration of Nature takes place the first two weeks of December.
Information and entry forms available at our Art Shows page.
Building Features
Geothermal Pond
Classrooms
The Wet Lab Classroom is set up much like a high school science lab with stools and six lab tables, and is a great space for messier field trip activities. The Dry Lab is a multifunctional open space that is also the home base for summer daycamps. By utilizing the Exhibit Hall, the Earth Discovery Center can host up to three classrooms simultaneously.
Exhibit Hall
The Exhibit Hall is home to some of our live turtles, snakes, and other educational ambassadors, as well as a multifunctional space for field trips, public programs, art exhibits, and seasonal activities and displays. The walls of this unique space are covered with custom wallpaper artwork featuring several of the native plants and animals found in Eagle Creek Park.
Meet the Naturalists
Earth Discovery Center Manager
Dawn is an Indianapolis native who started working at Eagle Creek Park as a seasonal naturalist back in 1994. She attended Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts where she majored in biology and minored in studio art. She then moved on to complete graduate work in wildlife science with Purdue University’s Department of Forestry before coming back to work full-time at Eagle Creek Park.
Her favorite things about the park include the amazing diversity of park visitors, the small, hidden vernal pools teeming with fairy shrimp and baby salamanders in the spring, and the sound of loons (the bird kind) calling on the reservoir. She specializes in amphibians and reptiles, bugs and aquatic invertebrates, growing native plants for butterfly gardening, and loves answering weird questions about Indiana wildlife.
She is also a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and shares her home with six fish, five orphaned baby opossums, three cats, three orphaned raccoons, three orphaned baby squirrels, one yellow-bellied slider, and one rescued domestic rabbit.
Naturalist
Leah grew up in North Carolina where she attended North Carolina State University, and graduated with a degree in natural resources-ecosystem assessment. After graduating, she was hired as an outdoor environmental educator with the Flat Rock River YMCA in St. Paul, Indiana. She learned to teach children to love nature while exploring the outdoors, and has been doing so ever since.
She enjoys a wide range of outdoor activities including hiking, identifying insects, and nature photography. As her boss describes, “Leah is awesome and likes to pin dead insects when she isn’t teaching archery or writing environmental education curricula.”
Naturalist
Bio to come.
Naturalist
Bio to come.
Earth Discovery Center Manager
Dawn is an Indianapolis native who started working at Eagle Creek Park as a seasonal naturalist back in 1994. She attended Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts where she majored in biology and minored in studio art. She then moved on to complete graduate work in wildlife science with Purdue University’s Department of Forestry before coming back to work full-time at Eagle Creek Park.
Her favorite things about the park include the amazing diversity of park visitors, the small, hidden vernal pools teeming with fairy shrimp and baby salamanders in the spring, and the sound of loons (the bird kind) calling on the reservoir. She specializes in amphibians and reptiles, bugs and aquatic invertebrates, growing native plants for butterfly gardening, and loves answering weird questions about Indiana wildlife.
She is also a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and shares her home with six fish, five orphaned baby opossums, three cats, three orphaned raccoons, three orphaned baby squirrels, one yellow-bellied slider, and one rescued domestic rabbit.
Naturalist
Leah grew up in North Carolina where she attended North Carolina State University, and graduated with a degree in natural resources-ecosystem assessment. After graduating, she was hired as an outdoor environmental educator with the Flat Rock River YMCA in St. Paul, Indiana. She learned to teach children to love nature while exploring the outdoors, and has been doing so ever since.
She enjoys a wide range of outdoor activities including hiking, identifying insects, and nature photography. As her boss describes, “Leah is awesome and likes to pin dead insects when she isn’t teaching archery or writing environmental education curricula.”
Naturalist
Bio to come.
Naturalist
Bio to come.
Key Contributors to the
Earth Discovery Center
The EDC would like to thank the following generous contributors:
“We find that a lot of kids are really scared of nature — they come here and think they’re going into the jungle! We want them to take a walk in the park and realize that there is nothing dangerous out there. They might find some of these creatures in their own backyard, but they’re harmless and fun to learn about.”
Eco-Friendly Building
The Earth Discovery Center was built with the following environmentally friendly features:
- Geothermal heating and cooling that utilizes local groundwater
- Photocell outdoor lighting
- Native, wildlife-friendly landscaping
- Carpet made of recycled material
- Eco-friendly bathrooms with motion sensor lighting, faucets, and hand dryers, as well as low-volume toilets
- Revolving front door that helps keep cooled or heated air inside
- Built on the site of the old ranger station (using previously disturbed land means fewer habitats affected and less land cleared)
- Bike racks
- Furniture made of recycled plastic
- Recycling containers for plastic, glass, and paper products
- Bio-swale and swirl tank to clean storm water run-off before returning it to the reservoir