Earth Day celebration planned at Bethany Beach Nature Center

The Bethany Beach Nature Center will be hosting an Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p .m.

The Bethany Beach Nature Center Club, BBNC, made up of kids ages 8 and older, has been planning the event under the guidance of Lisa Daisey and Karen Knight since early winter. The club meets every Friday during the school year, from 4 to 5 p.m.

Daisey said the group grew out of the nature center’s Saturday-morning program for young children. Unlike the children’s program, the older members of the Kids Club independently decide what they want to study each Friday afternoon.

In the first few months, they have studied native birds, adopted a pond and dived into the Atlantic Ocean on New Year’s Day.

This will be their first Earth Day celebration.

Vendors will be on hand, and the Nature Club will be having a ceremony for the Adopt-A-Wetland program at 12:30 p.m. that same day. Daisey explained, “They adopted the little wetland just behind the center back in October and have been taking monthly logs to monitor its water quality and have been cleaning up around it, as well.”

Vendors include the Center for the Inland Bays, CNC Solar – which installed the solar panels at the Nature Center – A&A Geothermal, Good Earth Market, Delaware State Parks and Going Green on Delmarva magazine.

“The kids will be tie-dying T-shirts and doing crafts,” explained Daisey. “Also, they will be giving tours of inside the Center and down the trail every 15 minutes or so, for people who are new to the Center.”

She said the event will be like an “open house,” at which people can learn about all the things the Nature Center has, such as its rain garden, native plant garden, nature trail and the solar panels.

In addition, the club will be giving puppet shows with stories focused on composting.

“It’s free and open to the public,” Daisey noted. She added that they are encouraging foot-traffic to the nature center and would encourage people to carpool, walk or ride their bikes in honor of Earth Day. For those who do need to drive, there will be overflow parking available in the adjacent Grotto’s side parking lot.

The Bethany Beach Nature Center is located at 807 Garfield Parkway, Route 26, just west of Grotto Pizza.