Calling all Ohio educators! Celebrate back-to-school season at the Fernald Preserve Visitor Center! Come take advantage of our year-round programs, speakers, and meeting spaces, in addition to regular visitor center hours, trails, and wildlife viewing areas. Alternatively, bring a free program or guest speaker to your event! Program topics include site history and mission, groundwater remedy, ecological restoration, environmental sciences, wildlife, ecology, and green building features. Learn more below about how to contact the Fernald Preserve Visitor Center to reserve a tour or request a program. LM’s STEM with LM webpage also contains many downloadable, interactive hands-on activities to enjoy at home.
The interpretive staff at Fernald Preserve is available to address schools, scouts, senior groups, and other organized groups on a variety of topics relating to the site's history and mission, groundwater remedy, ecological restoration, environmental sciences, wildlife, ecology, and green building features.
On-site Tours and Programs
• Groups must provide their own transportation to and from the visitors center.
• Consecutive days may be scheduled to accommodate large groups.
• Groups might be split into smaller groups to rotate through each activity on-site.Guest Speakers and Outreach Programs
Interpretive staff will travel to your location and provide program materials at no cost. With access to a variety of STEM professionals, we can create a program or schedule a guest speaker to accommodate any type of educational event including (but not limited to):
• Career fairs
• STEM events
• Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
• Public and private schools
• High school and college level programs (depending on availability of subject-matter-experts)Contact us to find out how we can best support your event and fit your curriculum. All programs are correlated with state standards and more information is available upon request.
The Community Meeting Room, Resource Room, and outdoor Program Shelter were designed to be used by the public when they are not in use by Fernald Preserve staff. These facilities are available free of charge for noncommercial use by organized groups.
Seating capacity for the Community Meeting Room is 120 for theater seating and 80 for conference seating.
Seating capacity at standard tables in the outdoor Program Shelter is 58. The seating capacity in the Resource Room is 8
(at a conference table).The application review process to reserve these facilities could take up to two weeks.
To make a room reservation or for more information, please email us at
[email protected].Visit Fernald Preserve Fernald Preserve Hours:
Monday to Sunday, 7 a.m. to dusk.Visitors Center Hours:
Wednesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.Closed public holidays
Available Programs
Grades: 6 to 12 and adult
Key content: the Cold War, uranium processing, Feed Materials Production Center, eminent domain
Available as outreach: Yes
Inside or outside: Inside
Learn how the Atomic Energy Commission built the Feed Materials Production Center on a 1,050-acre tract of land outside the small farming community of Fernald, Ohio. See how the factory fit in as the first link in the United States’ nuclear weapons complex during the Cold War.
Grades: 6 to 12 and adult
Key content: Site cleanup, CERCLA, superfund, Ohio EPA, on-site disposal, Legacy Management
Available as outreach: Yes
Inside or outside: Both (can be inside only)
Learn how, in 1991, the mission of the site officially changed from uranium production to environmental cleanup under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
Grades: 3 to 12 and adult
Key content: Restoration, wildlife, habitats, ecology, indicator species, reintroduction, diversity
Available as outreach: Yes
Inside or outside: Both (can be inside only)
LM’s mission includes enabling community access to the Fernald Preserve, with an emphasis on wildlife. Learn about the site’s recently changing ecology, the wildlife found on-site, and the success of Fernald as a wildlife preserve.
Grades: 3 to 12 and adult
Key content: Environmental science, groundwater, aquifer, pollution
Available as outreach: Yes
Inside or outside: Both
Groundwater is a vital source of water in the earth and is constantly flowing under our feet through soil and bedrock. Through a hands-on activity creating their own aquifer in a cup, participants learn about the importance of groundwater and discover how human actions and natural events can potentially cause underground contamination.
Grades: 1 to 12
Key content: Environmental science, water cycle, life cycles, pollution, conservation, pond ecology
Available as outreach: No
Inside or outside: Both. Includes a hike about 2 miles long.
Water is a vital source of life on earth. Using hands-on activities, learn about the water cycle and water quality. Investigate a body of above-ground water with nets and tools.*All outdoor activities are weather dependent and can be substituted