ONSC Facility Assessment Day

We have an exciting day coming up at the Ozark Natural Science Center that has been a long time coming!

On March 28, a fantastic team of professionals will join us at our campus in the Bear Hollow Natural Area to do a complete audit of our facilities.  We'll walk through the Ewing Centre, three lodges, our indoor and outdoor classrooms, parking lot, campfire pavilion and trails to put together an idealistic wish list of all the improvements we'd like to make to our facilities.

Joining us will be folks from the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, team members from GE Lighting (be sure to check out GE's awesome ecomagination site), friends from Perkowitz + Ruth architects, board member David Stitt from Stitt Energy and representatives of the NWA chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. 

As a field science and environmental education facility, you can imagine how much we hate to not be on the cutting edge of sustainable operations.  Since we spend all day every day teaching kids about our mission of enhancing the understanding, appreciation and stewardship of the Ozark natural environment, we want to ensure we are excellent stewards as well.  While our campus was built nearly twenty years ago in a low-impact, intelligent way to take advantage of natural light and minimize impact and we certainly watch our waste, compost and make smart choices, it's time for some upgrades.

Our hope is that this wish list will be something we can work from in the coming years gradually as resources, donated materials, corporate support and other opportunities allow.  It will certainly be a slow but steady plan of attack. 

We would like to identify some ways to capture energy (wind, solar, water) and also find ways to conserve energy and decrease our impact.  Most importantly, we want to incorporate educational tools into everything we do so that our teacher naturalists can actively show visiting students what we're doing every day to reduce our impact, and help inspire them to make changes of their own.

And in the interim, watch for some exciting updates: we'll be working to add rain barrels on-site, unveil a bee-friendly pollinator garden and working bee hives, and implementing phase one of a rain garden thanks to funding support from Cargill, Inc.

It's an exciting time at the Ozark Natural Science Center.  Please let us know if there are ways you, your business or your team could support our efforts to walk the walk, honor our founders and reflect our mission in all that we do!

New ONSC Website + Our Blog Has Moved!

We are delighted to announce that www.onsc.us relaunched this week!

You'll find our blog housed permanently on the site, and can reach it here: ONSC Blog.

Our site is now much more functional, so you can easily find information on our renowned school programs, exciting summer camps and unique adult and family programs, or learn about how to support ONSC by getting involved as an individual, making a donation, using our facilities for your organization, attending an event and much more.  Come on over and visit us, and thanks for reading!

Guest Blogger: Paul Wilson

ONSC has been fortunate to have a local ally, Paul Wilson of Intrust Bank, establish a Terracycle brigade that allows ONSC to earn cash through trash.  Learn more about Terracycle and ONSC in the Get Involved section of www.onsc.us and join the ONSC Corps and our brigade to support ONSC through Terracycle.  Here's some background on this intriguing program written by Paul:

So, what exactly is Terracyle and how can it be beneficial to our community? Terracycle is a company that takes name brand specific products that would otherwise go in your ordinary waste and recycles them into new products that are sold through retail channels. Terracycle pays a nonprofit or school of your choice for each piece of trash mailed in. Different criteria, such as type of packaging and how much you must ship apply to each product. 

The list of items Terracycle accepts is vast including: Trident, Bubblelicious, Dentyne and Stride bubble gum wrappers; cell phones; inkjet cartridges; Ziploc bags; all Mars brand candy wrappers; Capri Sun pouches; Frito-Lay Brand chip bags; Scotch tape dispensers and cores; Elmer’s glue containers; Stoneyfield yogurt containers; any Kraft brand cheese packaging; Mission tortilla & tostada bags; Colgate toothpaste packaging; Cliff Bar wrappers; Pentel highlighters and pens; Malt-O-Meal cereal bags; all laptops, digital cameras & mp3 players; among many other products. To view a list of items collected by the ONSC Terracycle brigade click here.

Do you see a product you recognize and use regularly? More than likely you do. You also probably throw these items away, because they are not easily recyclable. Consider the opportunity to not only keep these items from the landfill since they are turned in to other usable products but also to give back to your community.  At $0.02 per item, the money returned to your chosen nonprofit can really add up fast.  Think about what could happen when a large group of people unite and mobilize for the benefit of one nonprofit.
 
One such group that has mobilized an effort is the Northwest Arkansas Emerging Leaders (NWAEL).  During 2010, NWAEL collected more than 2,500 Frito-Lay chip bags, 200 Stride and Trident gum wrappers and 71 cell phones while earning over $70 for the benefit of the Ozark Natural Science Center.  Other materials have also been collected with ship dates scheduled for early 2011.  The organization collaborated with several businesses (thank you to Gusano’s Pizza in Bella Vista and Fix-It Wireless in Bentonville), events, and individuals to collect these materials.  Now the ONSC Corps has joined to help collect items and earn money for ONSC.   

So what can you do? I would advocate that you find a nonprofit who is managing the process and support them by providing the material.  Obtaining enough volume to mail in a particular material may prove to be challenging otherwise, changes are frequently made to the program and the website can be a bit of a challenge to navigate.

Best wishes collecting “trash” and most importantly, have fun while asking for it.

* To help collect “trash” for ONSC contact corps@onsc.us for more information.  There are several drop off sites around town to bring your trash or contact us and we will pick it up for you!  Learn about items to collect here.

ONSC to host first Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged mini-conference!

We are beyond excited to announce that the Ozark Natural Science Center will be hosting the first ever Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged mini-conference on June 10 - 12, 2011!

Read a bit more, and then learn more at Arkansas Women Bloggers, grab a registration form and plan now to join us!  You can also learn more on the site about submitting a presentation proposal and attendee scholarships.  See you in June!

Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged

Mini-Conference ● June 10 – 12, 2011
Ozark Natural Science Center ● Up In The Hills

You work, you play, you cook, you clean, you blog. Time to shake it up.

An extended gathering of Arkansas Women Bloggers is past due. We all dream of Blissdom, BlogHer, Blog Sugar and the like... but funds, family, time, location and reality get in the way. Here's your chance to unplug for the weekend, network with other Arkansas women bloggers, pick up tips, gain inspiration and grow.

The Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged mini-conference is a networking retreat and informal blogging conference all rolled into one. Here's the catch... we'll literally unplug for the weekend. Feel free to bring those laptops, chi chi tablets and smartphones if you have separation anxiety, but don't plan to spend any time with them. You won't want to with the speakers, activities and old fashioned chatting you'll cram into every spare minute.

So... plan now to just do it. Step away from the screen. You can do this. We'll have an idyllic setting and real, live, face to face connections with other bloggers and inspiring speakers to fuel and refresh you to return home ready to face it all. You know, the work – the play – the cooking – the cleaning – the amazingly improved and refocused blogging.

Who: Women bloggers (and would-be bloggers) in Arkansas and beyond

When: Friday, June 10 (arrive between 5 & 7ish) – Sunday, June 12 (after brunch)

Where: The Ozark Natural Science Center in northwest Arkansas (read: rustic lodges, bunk beds, and feeling like you're back at summer camp with your girlfriends)

Cost: $199/person (seriously, that's cheap: a weekend getaway including two nights of lodging, meals, speakers, networking, relaxing and *ahem* beverages).

Limited scholarships are available via Arkansas Women Bloggers.

The more registered attendees we have, the more scholarships will be available!

Registration deadline is May 31, 2011 – space is limited!

Questions? 

 Stephanie (The Park Wife), Fawn (Instead of the Dishes) or Beth (Ozark Natural Science Center).

Why a Corporate Giant Cares Deeply about ONSC

You may recall that Cargill, Inc. gave a gift to ONSC in June 2010 mentioned in this blog post: The Launch of the Mango Fleet.  Cargill has continued to be a strong partner since that time and has recently agreed to support us significantly again in 2011.  Read more about their commitment in this guest post by Stephanie Burroughs:

Let me give you a little background about Cargill.  I think after knowing a bit more about the company, you’ll understand why we are so passionate about Ozark Natural Science Center! 

Founded in 1865, our privately held company employs 131,000 people in 66 countries. Our corporate responsibility extends beyond our own operations to the wider communities in the 66 countries in which we live and work. At Cargill, we recognize the complex challenges facing our world. We also know that we can achieve progress on difficult issues by working together with our stakeholders. We collaborate with organizations around the world to improve the nutrition and health of those in our communities, provide access to education and encourage responsible stewardship of natural resources. 

Resource stewardship is critical for Cargill. Fulfilling our purpose of nourishing people requires clean water, soil and air. As a global food and agriculture company, we are focused on a sustainable future that reduces demands on the environment as populations continue to grow. Our innovative approaches to conserve resources, use renewable raw materials and reduce impacts are helping to preserve and protect the environment, and delivering results for our customers, our employees, our communities and our planet. 

We’ve set some lofty goals, such as our commitment to reduce absolute GHG emissions from our U.S. operations by joining the Chicago Climate Exchange. To fulfill these goals and to continue to strive for a more sustainable business, Cargill needs employees who think globally. 

The education the kids of our area receive at ONSC is invaluable in developing the future generation of business leaders that balance economic prosperity with sustainability and care for the environment. We believe that ONSC plants the seed of that thinking with our area school children.

Additionally, another tenet of Cargill’s culture is community engagement. We know that our continued success depends on the growth and health of the communities in which we live and work. That is why we work with a diverse group of global, national, and local organizations to bring positive, measurable improvements to our communities. The impact of our fiscal giving is extended by the volunteer efforts of our employees worldwide. Our Ambassador program encourages employees to give of their time to volunteer organizations in their communities, and provides two hours of paid time per month to volunteer. We target our charitable giving to programs that provide long-term solutions, engage our employees and leverage their expertise. 

Two of our three focus areas align perfectly with ONSC’s mission - the environment and education. We believe in ONSC’s commitment to the education of our children. Many employees have been chaperones on fifth grade trips, and have reported that they probably learned as much and had as much fun as the kids they supervised. These employees are wildly passionate about ONSC. 

We truly believe that ONSC is shaping our future generation of leaders at a pivotal point in their lives, and look forward to continuing to find ways that we can work together to provide this access to education in stewardship of natural resources. 

It’s been my personal pleasure to work with Beth and Jason to find innovative projects to help the cause, whether it be purchasing a fleet of canoes or helping establish the center’s first rain garden. All of us here at Cargill are passionate about ONSC! I would encourage other companies who have a similar passion and commitment to find ways to support this invaluable resource to our community!