I wanted to share with homeschoolers in the Birmingham region an exciting new website called Trek Birmingham (www.trekbirmingham.com). This website is perfect for planning an outdoor learning-adventure with your children. The site features six key destinations in the B’ham area for environmental education. Each site offers authoritative information on ecology, geology, biodiversity and watersheds in a style that is easy to read and a format that is fun to use.
Trek Birmingham suggests following “treks” that link the destinations with a common theme. There are three: the Iron Age, Nature Center, and Urban Wilderness Treks. For instance, on the Iron Age trek you might visit Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark to learn how pig iron was produced, then visit Ruffner Mountain Nature Center to see the mining ruins and the mountain from which the iron ore was extracted.
The program is sponsored by Birmingham-Southern College’s Urban Environmental Studies program. We will be adding more sites soon. Our goal is to help Birmingham’s residents and visitors appreciate and understand the wealth of natural resources that are hidden within our city and greatly enhance our quality of life.
Here is a link to the press release about the program: http://www.bsc.edu/communications/news/2011/20110510-trekbham.cfm
