The Department of Environmental Education has delivered the message of conservation to 1.4 million children and adults throughout Virginia over the past 24 years. Our goal is to teach the importance of caring for wildlife and the environment. The education team can deliver these crucial environmental messages by:

• visiting your school, library or organization
• hosting a visit to The Wildlife Center of Virginia for a tour or field trip
• joining you at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia in Staunton, Virginia

The curricula for all environmental education services are developed to meet the Virginia Standards of Learning requirements.

The problems that bring thousands of animals to the Center's doorstep each year - litter, loss of habitat, pesticides, diseases, and free-roaming domestic animals - provide great insights into the environmental health of our communities.

The Wildlife Center's Education Department takes these insights and translates them into award-winning educational programs for children and adults. Programs we currently offer, which are modified to be age-appropriate, include:

• Critters Don't Need Litter, which highlights the dangers to wildlife posed by litter
• You Are What You Eat, an exploration of the food chain
• Wildlife Myths: The Truth Behind the Tails, a discovery of animal myths
• Whoo's Awake in the Night, a look at nature's nocturnal creatures
• A View from the Top, a study of powerful and exciting birds of prey
• Ancient Voices: Native American Animal Legends, experience old legends about animals
• Scales and Tails, a look into the world of scaly critters

• Wildlife of the New World, a Jamestown exploration
• A Journey Down the Appalachian Trail

The Center's environmental education programs are designed to complement and enhance the Virginia Standards of Learning, especially those in the Life Sciences.

Assisting Center educators in these presentations are special "ambassadors" - including Slick, a Black Rat Snake; Lily, a Virginia Opossum; Pignoli, an Eastern Screech Owl; and Scarlette, a Red-Tailed Hawk. Center educators generally take three non-releasable animals - patients that have been treated at the Center but whose injuries or behavioral modifications preclude their return to the wild - for an in-school program.

Assembly Programs

Tours and Field Trips

Virginia Standards of Learning Correlations

2006 Wildlife Center of Virginia Environmental Education Programs Brochure (PDF - 1.9MB)