North10 Nature Club Brings a Year of Nature Discovery to Hunting Park

This year, Riverbend partnered with North10 to bring an afterschool nature club to 3rd and 4th graders. North10 is a community center serving the north Philadelphia neighborhood of Hunting Park. Each week, the kids in the nature club experienced engaging nature-related lessons. They dissected owl pellets, learned how to construct a tent, went birding, interacted with living animals like cockroaches, snakes, and turtles, and much more!

To bring such engaging lessons to North10 Nature Club kids, Riverbend partnered with nature-focused organizations across the Philadelphia area including Awbury Arboretum, Greener Partners, Schuylkill Center, Let’s Go Outdoors, and the Audubon at the Discovery Center. Educators from each organization taught multiple lessons in the North10 Community Center and, for most of the organizations, organized a field trip so that the North10 kids could explore nature outside of their neighborhood.

The year with the North10 nature club culminated in a project in partnership with Hunting Park United focused on improving the habitat for pollinator species like bees and butterflies in Hunting Park. The nature club students picked up trash in Hunting Park and the following week planted native pollinator plants at the edge of a rain garden. They also raised caterpillars and released the butterflies into the community.

The North10 Nature Club kids not only made an impact on their community and learned about nature, but they also had a lot of fun in the process!