Visitors to Gorman Discovery Center chopped wood, tasted walnut syrup, and viewed other wood crafts

Kansas City, Mo. – A sunny day with wood and wildlife-related exhibits brought more than 400 visitors to the Urban Woods event on Feb. 18 at the Anita B. Gorman Discovery Center in Kansas City. Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) staff, volunteers, and partner organizations set up exhibits and demonstrated skills both indoors and outdoors at the center.

Indoors, visitors saw woodworking demonstrations and visited skills stations such as knot tying. A Kids Kamp room let parents and children try out tents and play with pretend campsites and gear. The Kansas City Public Library staffed a nature book table. Volunteers helped children do crafts.

Outdoors, visitors could see maple syrup being boiled and they could view the collection buckets for sap attached to various species of trees on the grounds. Walnut and maple syrup made by Discovery Center staff was available for taste tests. Volunteers provided camp stove cooked blueberry pancakes. Hot apple cider spiced with ingredients from native trees and plants was served along with pawpaw cookies. Visitors saw demonstrations and tried their own hand at chopping wood, starting campfires, or throwing the atlatl. MDC staff brought in a mobile sawmill to show how logs, including those from urban trees, could be milled into lumber for projects.

MDC’s Gorman Discovery Center at 4750 Troost Ave. connects people with nature year-round through exhibits, classes, school group visits, and special programs like Urban Woods. To sign up for the Kansas Nature & You newsletter and other news releases about MDC events in the Kansas City area, visit https://short.mdc.mo.gov/ZoP. To learn more about the Discovery Center, visit https://mdc.mo.gov/discoverycenter.