A Visit to the PENN STATE ARBORETUM - Review by Principal Powers

Kingdom Academy (School in Winchester, VA) believes EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING is #1 for students. Therefore travel and exploration are a must!

We visited the Penn State Arboretum on Monday, May 31, 2021 prior to attending Memorial Day services in the region. What a fantastic decision! Located immediately adjacent to the campus of Penn State in State College, Pennsylvania, the Arboretum covers 370 acres of inviting outdoor space. While boasting an incredible bounty of trees, the Arboretum also offers the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. Winding paths allow visitors to meander along and take in the beautiful offerings. With all the flora being labeled, the Arboretum provides an enjoyable learning opportunity for participants to brush up on their prior knowledge of plant and tree life, as well as discover new offerings one maybe has not seen previously. For example, we found it interesting to discover what an "Ornamental Onion" was or to learn there is a ground cover plant that actually looks as if it has silver in it.

As we leisurely strolled along, we encountered a lovely, little fountain in one area, and a mini pond with fish in another area. Children tend to love water features and the children spent quite a bit of time observing the fish as they went about their normal activity.

The best feature for children, however, is the Childhood's Gate Children's Garden. This special zone of the Arboretum was designed just for kids and offers great interactive items, as well as more beautiful flora for all to appreciate. The kids who were visiting loved hopping on the oversized instruments offered in this special section, such as large chimes, and trying their hand at making a melody. Another example of a fun kiddo item included a large, spinning flowerpot with multiple, fixed scopes around it, allowing young ones to participate in creating their own kaleidoscope effect. There was also a "cave" for exploration the children loved checking out, as well as several other engaging offerings.

As the previous day had been unseasonably cold and also overcast, the day of the visit to the Arboretum was the literal "breath of fresh air" traveling kiddos needed as the weather turned warm and sunny, making outdoor time particularly enjoyable. Going to the Penn State Arboretum afforded young ones the chance to walk, stroll, stretch, jump, climb, discover and explore, making it a completely delightful and educational outing.

Finally, as practicality truly matters when traveling with children, something that was so nice about this offering was the wonderful and clean public bathrooms, benches here and there for taking a rest and the availability of a few picnic tables for anyone who would want to enjoy a packed lunch while visiting.

As a principal, teacher and a mom, I give the Penn State Arboretum an A rating as it offers a great combination of outdoor time, nature exposure/learning and interactive/experiential items for children. Best of all it is FREE and you can't beat that! It does not receive an A+ rating, as I would make the same suggestion for it that I make for many travel destinations, which is the installation of a traditional, (or creative -check out Cherry Crest Adventure Farm's creative and safe playground made of wood, logs and wires) full blown playground for children to enjoy. Children truly need to run, jump, play and be loud. Most of the people visiting are travelers. That means children are in hotels or company in another person's home, therefore burning off steam is a must. It was evident to me that the children visiting there that day wanted to run through the paths in the arboretum. After being kept from doing so by parents, it would be nice to have a large playground area where they could go to be "free" to run. Overall, however, it was a great outing that I would highly recommend for folks with children and worth the visit.