By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
The Lawrence Nature Center, situated at the edge of the Drexel Woods property on Drexel Avenue, is a jewel in southern Lawrence Township — but how to make that jewel more widely known to township residents is a puzzle.
That’s why about two dozen people gathered at the Lawrence Nature Center earlier this month with facilitator Ralph Copleman to brainstorm the future of the center and to figure out how to make sure it flourishes and grows.
Out of the four-hour session, several strategies emerged.
A master plan for the nature center will be prepared, and the Lawrence Nature Center’s Web site — www.lawrencenaturecenter.net — will be updated.
An invitation will be extended to the school district’s science coordinator to visit the nature center to encourage greater use of the center by teachers. An effort also will be made to contact the families of children who are being home-schooled to introduce them to the center.
Township Councilwoman Pam Mount offered a brief outline of the history of the Lawrence Nature Center to the group at the Nov. 1 meeting, which included representatives of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Sustainable Lawrence, the Moms Clubs of Lawrenceville, the Lawrence Township Greenway Committee and the Friends of the Trenton/Hamilton Marsh.
Lawrence Township purchased the 34-acre Drexel Woods property in the mid-1990s to prevent it from being developed, Ms. Mount said. The township subsequently purchased the 10-acre Rinck property, on which the nature center sits.
The Rinck House was renovated by the township Department of Public Works to become the Lawrence Nature Center, and the two-car garage on the property was renovated by the Girl Scouts and incorporated into the center.
”The challenge here, from my point of view — and Councilman Bob Bostock is here today, too — is we really do want to see the Lawrence Nature Center flourish and grow,” Ms. Mount said. “We want children and their parents to feel like it wouldn’t be a (good) day without a walk in the woods. Your job is to figure out how to do that with zero money.”
Carol Nicholas, who had been a Girl Scouts leader, said most of the Lawrence Nature Center’s programs have been run by the all-volunteer staff. The volunteers — including herself — have been meeting for almost five years to try to develop the nature center, she said.
”We don’t want to stay a pokey little place. We want to see what the community wants. If we don’t make a difference, there won’t be a forest left. We have to change the way people think,” Ms. Nicholas told the group.
The group divided itself into smaller groups and sat down to brainstorm. Asked to consider trends in the world that affect the Lawrence Nature Center, the groups offered a laundry list of trends.
Those trends ranged from global warming to increased multimedia competition for the attention of children and adults, to the lack of government officials who want to focus on the environment and to the schools’ emphasis on math and reading — often to the exclusion of environmental science.
The groups also considered how to increase the Lawrence Nature Center’s visibility and how to make the “nature center experience” more accessible to visitors. The suggestions included encouraging Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to visit by offering information on bird-watching merit badges, for example.
Another suggestion called for the Lawrence Nature Center to be offered as a meeting place to community groups. The groups would then be introduced to the property, and they could see how nice it is and what it has to offer.
It was also suggested that the center should be made more user-friendly, by offering self-guided tours with explanatory information so they will know what they have seen.
”This is not scientific, but it’s a good read on what this groups sees as the trends in the world that affect the Lawrence Nature Center,” Mr. Copleman, the facilitator, told the group. “This is a backdrop. As the Lawrence Nature Center moves forward, this is the stuff you’ll have to keep in mind.”

