Eastman Nature Center — Attraction in Dayton

We’ve really enjoyed visiting Eastman Nature Center over the years. It’s such a beautiful, peaceful place with so much for kids to explore—trails, exhibits, and fun educational activities. One of the recent highlights was a scavenger hunt where kids searched for seven animal statues and learned facts about each one to earn a special rock from the front desk. My daughter, who is autistic and very sensitive, worked so hard to complete the activity and was so proud.

When we approached the front desk, I was helping her recall the fact about the mole, but she didn’t get it exactly right. The receptionist who was an older women asked my daughter to check the fact again, which was totally understandable. The issue came when my daughter returned to try again—she was trying to tell the lady the correct fact, with a little prompting from me, but because she was shy and soft-spoken, the lady removed the bucket of rocks and put it away. Sadly, that crushed my daughter’s excitement. She didn’t say much in the moment, but later cried in the bathroom and said the lady was mean. For a child as easygoing and loving as she is, that says a lot.

What made the experience feel even more unfair was that the family behind us—three children who were white—was treated more gently. Their son didn’t get the fact 100% right either, but he still received a rock. I don’t want to assume intentions, but the difference in treatment was noticeable and hurtful. We love this place, but this experience was deeply disappointing for our family. For now, we’ll be taking a break, as my daughter no longer feels comfortable returning. We hope to come back in the future when the environment feels more inclusive and compassionate for all kids, especially those with special needs.

We give the easement nature center five stars but specifically that...

Eastman Nature Center, staff, and volunteers have laid the foundation for my appreciation of the natural world and our fellow humans that are a part of it. It has been a blessing for the nature exploration it provides both young and old including naturalist lead programming on various topics including making maple syrup; puppet shows; snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and hikes through the woods, prairies, streams, and wetlands across a floating boardwalk and many trails. Paved biking and hiking trails also provide access to the nature center where you can view various wildlife visiting feeders outside the massive glass windows including birds and mammals (I.e. white-tailed deer, black bears, etc.). Live animals are on display within the nature center, as well as multiple informational displays with opportunities to learn about the natural world around us utilizing our five senses. The knowledge, skills, and abilities I developed from my family and the friends I discovered at Eastman Nature Center lead me into a lifelong career in natural resources. It all started with an introduction to their Youth Naturalist programming at the age of 12 years old with a friend and led to years volunteering and working for Three Rivers Park District because of the welcoming staff and volunteers it fostered. What a tremendous resource for the local community and great foresight by those that took the initiative to originally establish the community center, as well as those that continue to make its existence even more meaningful today. This nature center has been a gem of Three Rivers Park District, formerly known as Hennepin Parks and prior to that Suburban Hennepin Regional...

The lady at the desk inside left me wishing I had never gone inside the building. There were at least 6 kids inside the building all kind of running around and being kids and yet I was only parent she came up to stating there were rules that clearly stated you could not run inside and you couldn’t do this or that, all the while I never saw a single sign with posted rules. (She never told us what we could do only what we couldn’t do) Then there is an interactive game you can play in the building where you find the statues and read the clues and go to the desks and state the clues you found (my child is 3 she can’t read and clearly is not going to remember 7 different things on her own) we just wanted to play the game and when I tried to have my daughter tell the lady the clues we had remembered she said she “doesn’t approve of parents helping and that is cheating” and wouldn’t let my daughter say her clues or get the prize. If the games were age restricted (ie: a sign that says 6+) or if there were specific rules for the games that stated parents couldn’t help children I would have had a better time but it just felt like this lady had a problem with me and my child for some reason. Oh and my child was the only black person in that building and she was excluded from almost everything by this women, it definitely felt targeted and it definitely felt race related, and if it wasn’t race related that lady just hates little kids because my daughter was also the youngest person in the building. What does an old lady like that get out of being mean...