The Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center Joins the Summer Fun & Games

kodiak_national_wildlife_refuge_2.jpgTwo children walk along a path during a Happy Trails outing. Via Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

For those of you looking for summer activities for your children, the flood gates are open. Groups around Kodiak are offering daytime and afternoon pursuits, and the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center is one of them.

Three of those programs are:  FUN / Families Understanding Nature, WILD / Wildlife, Investigation, Learning, and Discovery, and HAPPY TRAILS. Lauren Harre is a Visitor Center intern and says Happy Trails is a program with a mission.

“Happy Trails is a little bit different from both WILD and FUN,” she says. “They both take place in the visitor center, and so they’re a lot more stationary. They do crafts, they do stories, and they learn a lot, but Happy Trails is kinda focused on getting people outside. It stems from this nation-wide program where it basically focuses on getting families out and recreating.”

Harre says on June 13 they’ll have a beach bingo and clean-up.

“I’ll make a bingo card that’ll have things like seaweed or find some beach glass or whatever, and if they get in a row, maybe they’ll win something. And then if they find trash, that’s the clean-up part. And I’ll hopefully talk about Leave No Trace and some other things like that to go along with the clean-up part,” says Harre.

While Happy Trails is on Saturdays, the other two programs meet during the week. Ava Kahn is Visitor Center Manager and adds that FUN runs throughout the year.

“It’s for three to five year olds and their families, and we do stories and crafts and games and activities and all of our programs are nature oriented and have a conservation mission that’s age appropriate to the audience that we’re giving the programs for,” says Kahn.

She says the third program, WILD, continues through the summer and is geared towards elementary school-aged children.
 
You can learn more about the classes by calling 487 – 2626 or visiting the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Facebook page.

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