Wesselman Woods Nature Center is getting a fresh look. Construction started this week on a new entrance, but this is just the beginning for the 200 acre preserve.
Nearly a dozen volunteers are chopping down trees to clear the site for construction. Work crew team leader Dennis Pepper says the woodwill be used to fuel the evaporator at the Maple Sugar Bush festival to make maple syrup next year.
Once the site is cleared this patch of land will host the new entrance to Wesselman Woods Nature Center, expected to be completed in about two and half months, said Executive Director John Foster.
“We realize that they were changes that needed to be made, and the obvious one was just looking at the entrance, which was ugly," Foster said.
The Wesselman Nature Society raised $1.5 million dollars for upgrades, which include a playscape for children and possibly a tree house in the woods.
“I don’t know about your childhood but my childhood was spent outside and what those experiences did for kids was that they learned to love nature," Foster said. "Kids now-a-days spend seven and a half hours a day on average inside, interacting with electronic media”
Foster said a new exhibit and the nature playground are expected to be complete by 2015.
