We are offering workshops for small groups this February and March, teaching the skills of exploration. You can find our offerings on lewisandclarkexploratorycenter.eventbrite.com and if the times don't suit we also offer special reservations. Just pick out the program you prefer and email us at lewisandclark@lewisandclarkvirginia.org with your preferred times.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Connect with Us!
There are many ways to connect with the Lewis & Clark
Exploratory Center online! We thought we’d put together a handy guide to our
blogs and accounts, so you can decide where you might want to explore to learn more
about us and our programs.
Website:
www.lewisandclarkvirginia.org
Our website is the place to start! Thanks to a wonderful
volunteer we connected with through the United Way, we’re learning the features
of WordPress and we’re making changes as we learn. (Staff now runs all the
social media accounts.) You can sign up for our newsletter from a link on our
homepage. The website also has our most current blog posts, often related to
schedules and programs.
Where You Are Now!
Blog:
lewisandclarkexploratorycenter.blogspot.com
This was our first blog, and if you go back through the
years (it goes back to 2009), you’ll learn about our programs at the Keelboat
Barn (before bathrooms, electricity and running water), and you’ll read about
our construction project and process as we built the new building. We still
make entries, though we now divide our blogging time between Facebook, our
webpage, and blogspot... and we value having the continuity (and a historical
document of our earlier activities). For those of you new to us, the Lewis
& Clark Exploratory Center used to run its programs out of the big barn you
pass on the right as you drive to our current locations...
Instagram:
LewisandClarkCville
If you love photography, you’ll want to check out our
Instagram account, where we post nature and program photos.
Facebook:
Lewis & Clark
Exploratory Center
We are active on Facebook! Parents have lobbied us to turn
each weekend into an event page, so we try to do this as often as we can, and
we also put other news and schedule info in our posts. And of course we post photographs from our
outdoor and indoor adventures! Unless we have permission to show close-ups of
faces, we post photographs that protect privacy while showing events.
Pinterest:
Here is our original account (you have one of these before
you are asked to create a business hub):
Lewis’s Dog
https://www.pinterest.com/captainsdog/
When we got on Pinterest, we had a happy surprise! The Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center was on people’s places-we-most-want-to-visit
boards! In fact, the day we learned about these types of boards, a family came
in from out-of-town whose board we had just seen! This family is driving the
Lewis & Clark Trail to the Dakotas this summer.
And here is our business hub, which we’re developing:
Lewis & Clark
Exploratory Center
https://www.pinterest.com/lcecvirginia/
So far, people are interacting more with the dog and the
prairie dogs... we’ll await your follows and we’ll add your pins!
Twitter:
@ExploreLCEC
@LCExploratory
Disclosure: so far we don’t tweet very often. We have a lot
going on at the Exploratory Center, and composing tweets isn’t always at the
forefront of our minds. But when we do, it’s often to thank grant-making
organizations, and to reach out about various ideas. @ExploreLCEC is for our
visitors and has schedule information.
@LCExploratory is intended to be about professional concerns and
ideas...discussions about education and history.
YouTube:
Lewis & Clark
Exploratory Center
If you see an Eagle Mask logo (our current photo) you’re in
the right place! We’ve just begun our YouTube channel, and our first video is a
thank you to APO, the UVA service fraternity that has maintained our boats,
built our shed and benches, put in our second gravel path, and designed and
constructed our kayak shed! (They’ve also repaired our Trevillian’s Creek
bridge and more...) Our video was sent to their membership after their 2019
Brotherhood Project at the Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center.
tumblr
ExploreLCEC
Tumblr: our frontier. Tumblr has a much younger demographic
(children, teens, and tweens), and works like a visual blog. Our presence there
is an experiment so far... and we’ll be learning from our youngers along the
way.. Participation encouraged!
Saturday, September 15, 2018
FLOWtilla!
We are getting ready for the FLOWtilla event September 29th! We are going to decorate one of our new wooden boats as a cardinal, the Virginia state bird. If you'd like to decorate your own kayak or boat, come to the Center Saturday, September 22nd, for help and ideas!
Sunday, May 28, 2017
The Seed Exchange Garden
Yesterday was the first day of serious weeding in our Seed Exchange Garden, in its second year. The garden came to us through a gift of Pat Brodowski, the wonderful vegetable gardener of Monticello (her vegetables are full of wonder!). The seeds originate from the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota, via Lewis and Clark scholar Clay Jenkinson, who has presented at Monticello during its Heritage Festival and who grows a garden of his own in the Dakotas. Virginia got North Dakotan seeds, and North Dakota got Monticello's seeds, and the seeds are spreading.
Pat also gave us a book to go along with the seeds: "Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden," an account of Hidatsa gardening. I read it once, before the garden, and once during. Having worked with the seeds, I understood the second reading much more, but want to go back for a third. The account went over my head the first time, and for the second my head had risen a bit...now I'm curious about what level I'm at now.
We have other seeds in the garden, besides the heritage Native American seeds. Last year we let tomatoes rot on the vine, and now we have many tomato volunteers. The Native American beans have also come up without our help, though we have since planted more. I was told to thin the ones that had already emerged. So far this hasn't happened. I am letting them grow up in a big clump together. They are flowering already.
The deer fence hasn't gone up yet, and we have our first deer tracks in the garden. I planted a seedling (not sure what it was...a gift from Monticello and I can't remember the name...an herb, I think.) in one of the tracks, which I consider a sign of optimism. Besides, we are going to put up the fence soon. Last year we worried about mammals, but it was an insect that was our enemy: the squash borer worm.
A Girl Scout troop is partnering with us on the garden this year. They came and helped sprout and then plant seeds. So far we've had an elementary school class plant seeds, the Girl Scout troop, two Master Gardners from Arkansas, and the children of two families who visited us during open public hours. The garden is more randomly planted this year than it was last year, especially with the volunteer seeds. Volunteer people and volunteer seeds have given us some surprises. The elementary school children spread out larger than I intended with the sunflowers seeds. Sunflowers may be everywhere within a month.
This year we enlarged the garden, pulling it longer with the tractor. Here is where I made my first mistake: I decided to plant it in rows going down the hill instead of going across like we did last year. I changed the pattern to better resemble the diagram in the book. The couple from Arkansas warned me after the fact that having rows running down the hill might cause runnels. After our heavy rains, there is now a runnel in the middle of the garden. Last year we didn't have the same heavy rains or a runnel. Now I'm thinking I can try to plant some horizontal rows at the top of the hill.
The Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center is about the Rivanna River and about the Missouri, since we have three replicas of the boats that made it to the Mandan villages. Highlighting the agriculture that fed Lewis and Clark in the Mandan villages seems right, but it also leads to questions. Is planting Native American crops appropriation? Are we using it for our own gain in a negative way, or is it a way of knowledge, to understand Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara cultures? Are we imitating without full consciousness, or are we following in footsteps to understand them, or both?
The experience is derived, no matter what. We obviously do not have the same social context. Our lives are not dependent on the crops, or entwined with the crops. We are far from the original experience. But we are learning from the seeds, and from meeting their needs, and we can taste the crops, and recount the history of the seeds as we know it.
Pat also gave us a book to go along with the seeds: "Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden," an account of Hidatsa gardening. I read it once, before the garden, and once during. Having worked with the seeds, I understood the second reading much more, but want to go back for a third. The account went over my head the first time, and for the second my head had risen a bit...now I'm curious about what level I'm at now.
We have other seeds in the garden, besides the heritage Native American seeds. Last year we let tomatoes rot on the vine, and now we have many tomato volunteers. The Native American beans have also come up without our help, though we have since planted more. I was told to thin the ones that had already emerged. So far this hasn't happened. I am letting them grow up in a big clump together. They are flowering already.
The deer fence hasn't gone up yet, and we have our first deer tracks in the garden. I planted a seedling (not sure what it was...a gift from Monticello and I can't remember the name...an herb, I think.) in one of the tracks, which I consider a sign of optimism. Besides, we are going to put up the fence soon. Last year we worried about mammals, but it was an insect that was our enemy: the squash borer worm.
A Girl Scout troop is partnering with us on the garden this year. They came and helped sprout and then plant seeds. So far we've had an elementary school class plant seeds, the Girl Scout troop, two Master Gardners from Arkansas, and the children of two families who visited us during open public hours. The garden is more randomly planted this year than it was last year, especially with the volunteer seeds. Volunteer people and volunteer seeds have given us some surprises. The elementary school children spread out larger than I intended with the sunflowers seeds. Sunflowers may be everywhere within a month.
This year we enlarged the garden, pulling it longer with the tractor. Here is where I made my first mistake: I decided to plant it in rows going down the hill instead of going across like we did last year. I changed the pattern to better resemble the diagram in the book. The couple from Arkansas warned me after the fact that having rows running down the hill might cause runnels. After our heavy rains, there is now a runnel in the middle of the garden. Last year we didn't have the same heavy rains or a runnel. Now I'm thinking I can try to plant some horizontal rows at the top of the hill.
The Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center is about the Rivanna River and about the Missouri, since we have three replicas of the boats that made it to the Mandan villages. Highlighting the agriculture that fed Lewis and Clark in the Mandan villages seems right, but it also leads to questions. Is planting Native American crops appropriation? Are we using it for our own gain in a negative way, or is it a way of knowledge, to understand Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara cultures? Are we imitating without full consciousness, or are we following in footsteps to understand them, or both?
The experience is derived, no matter what. We obviously do not have the same social context. Our lives are not dependent on the crops, or entwined with the crops. We are far from the original experience. But we are learning from the seeds, and from meeting their needs, and we can taste the crops, and recount the history of the seeds as we know it.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Unlock History!
We've developed a new history game for the Center, with an easy and a difficult version, depending on your age and your familiarity with puzzle games. It's called Unlock History! and it will be available to the public through the summer, and to school and scouting groups by reservation the entire year. It is similar to an Escape Room game, but it does the opposite--solving the puzzles lets you in, not out!
Each of our full-size boat replicas are locked up--and you need to figure out the numbers to unlock them. The Keelboat cabin must also be unlocked with a password. Entering the cabin, there will be three boxes that will be the next challenge. Their combinations are figured out by doing three puzzles within the Center: Jefferson's Decoder Puzzle; the Trail Map and Math Puzzle, and the Compass and Language Puzzle. Each puzzle teaches you about history and leads you to learn even more.
You have an hour to complete the challenge!
Each of our full-size boat replicas are locked up--and you need to figure out the numbers to unlock them. The Keelboat cabin must also be unlocked with a password. Entering the cabin, there will be three boxes that will be the next challenge. Their combinations are figured out by doing three puzzles within the Center: Jefferson's Decoder Puzzle; the Trail Map and Math Puzzle, and the Compass and Language Puzzle. Each puzzle teaches you about history and leads you to learn even more.
You have an hour to complete the challenge!
Friday, November 25, 2016
Thanksgiving Schedule
We are open Saturday, November 26th from 10 to 4! We hope to see you and your family!
We are closed Friday, November 25 for the holiday.
We are closed Friday, November 25 for the holiday.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Boats and Butterflies Festival October 8
We're still on rain or shine! We won't be launching on the river, but we will be making model boats we can float from the shore. Inside, there will be plenty of art to be made about butterflies, and an exhibition of our heritage seed garden...that attracted plenty of butterflies this summer and fall.
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