Dickinson County Nature Center — Attraction in Spirit Lake

An indoor bee hive, live web feed of an osprey nest, prairie roots and bird exhibits --- the Dickinson County Nature Center is a hub of activity and education in the Iowa Great Lakes area.

All ages will love to come spend time at the nature center, and you will have fun whether you consider yourself a nature lover or not.

Just inside the front door is a display with items from all the areas owned or operated by Dickinson County Conservation, from county parks to the Westport Rural Schoolhouse to Pollinator Paradise, which is an area with native gardens and has a house where monarch caterpillars are raised into butterflies.

Then step inside the nature center and check out the new bird exhibit which includes backyard birds and their nests, wild birds in the natural habitat and even a tree created from pieces of other trees where you can guess the species by the bark.

There's also an indoor art exhibit with pieces by local artists, a display on prairie roots, a model of an osprey nest and live feed from the camera on the nest outside, an indoor bee hive, historic exhibits in the library and a gift shop.

Downstairs in the nature center, you can spend time learning about all kinds of great animals. See adorable rats playing in their pen. Check out the salamanders, American toad, leopard frog, fish and turtles in their pens. The albino coral snake, western fox snake and coral snake are also popular with the kids.

Families also love the kids area in the basement where children can play and learn at the same time.

This place is awesome because it's also changing and updating. Don't take this review as final, because next time you go in there will be more and more to look at and learn about. Also, you can do a ton outside the nature center like geocache, walk through prairie trails, hike around a wetland, play disc golf, visit Pollinator Paradise and the one-room...

This is the cutest nature center I've ever seen! My kids spent hours here and were still sad to leave, and we didn't even see all of it! There is a small gift shop area near the entrance then once you head further inside, some nice displays about various nature topics, a live turtle, and a nice library. And downstairs there are more displays and more live animals. But if you have young kids the highlight is without a doubt the pollinator themed room off the main floor. Inside was basically a small children's museum all with pollination theme. There is a food truck with play food that all relies on pollinators, there's a fun ball shooting game with a pollination theme, and there's a honeycomb climbing structure and slide. Plus lots of smaller hands on displays for kids with pollination theming. It's all so well done and it was clean and working great. I'm...

What a wonderful place! Nature tots was so much fun. My 3 and 5 year old loved it! We are new to the area and got a little turned around, even late we were welcomed with open arms. I searched and searched for something for the children to do in this cold winter and stumbled upon the Nature Center and was more than happy I did. Our instructors were great, we mingled with moms while taking a wonderful hike through a beautiful and well kept trail with instructors who were able to keep all the children interacting, learning and having fun. The children then got to make art with supplies already out and ready. The people who put this wonderful place together really put nature and learning together. We will definitely go back. I can not say enough wonderful things about this place. I hope you go...