Jennings Environmental Education Center is a Pennsylvania state park in Brady Township, Butler County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

in the United States. It is north of

Butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some a ...

at the intersection of

Pennsylvania Route 8 Pennsylvania Route 8 (PA 8) is a major state route in western Pennsylvania. Officially, PA 8 is named the William Flinn Highway. Its southern terminus is at Interstate 376 (I-376)/U.S. Route 22 (US 22)/US 30 in Pittsburgh. Its northern terminus ...

and Pennsylvania Route 528. The center contains a

relict A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon. Biology A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas. Geology and geomorphology In geology, a r ...

prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

of , the only publicly protected prairie ecosystem in Pennsylvania. Big Run, a tributary of

Slippery Rock Creek Slippery Rock Creek is a stream in western Pennsylvania, a tributary of Connoquenessing Creek. Course and history From its source in Hilliards in Butler County, it flows through McConnells Mill State Park before flowing into the Connoquene ...

, flows through Jennings Environmental Education Center, and it shares a border with

Moraine State Park Moraine State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on in Brady, Clay, Franklin, Muddy Creek, and Worth townships in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The park's main feature is its man-made lake, Lake Arthur, formed by impoundi ...

to the south. Jennings Environmental Education Center was chosen by the

Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), established on July 1, 1995, is the agency in the U.S. State of Pennsylvania responsible for maintaining and preserving the state's 124 state parks and 20 state forests; pr ...

(DCNR) and its Bureau of Parks as one of "25 Must-See Pennsylvania State Parks".

Environmental education

The main purpose of Jennings Environmental Education Center is to provide

environmental education Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating discip ...

for the citizens of Pennsylvania and specifically the students of the nearby

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

s, and

universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

. Jennings stays busy offering hands on opportunities to students and teachers with a "discovery and problem solving" approach. Jennings offers numerous programs to the public throughout the year, many of which are free. Some, such as the

National Public Lands Day National Public Lands Day (NPLD) is celebrated annually at public lands in the United States on the fourth Saturday of September. A signature event of the National Environmental Education Foundation, it promotes both popular enjoyment and volunt ...

volunteer project, require pre-registration. The annual Celebrate the Bloom festival, occurring when the

blazing star ''Blazing Star'' is a shoot 'em up video game developed by Yumekobo and published by SNK in 1998 for the Neo Geo arcade and home systems. It is a follow-up to '' Pulstar'' (1995) and features side-scrolling action similar to its predecessor an ...

is in peak bloom, began in 2013.

Prairie

Prairies are extremely rare in Pennsylvania. They are usually found further to the west in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

and across the midwest to the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

. The prairie at Jennings Environmental Education Center is the only protected prairie ecosystem in Pennsylvania. It provides a

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

for plants that are unique to prairie and the endangered

massasauga rattlesnake The massasauga (''Sistrurus catenatus'') is a rattlesnake species found in midwestern North America from southern Ontario to northern Mexico and parts of the United States in between. Like all rattlesnakes, it is a pit viper and is venomous. Th ...

. Jennings Environmental Education Center was the first state park established to protect an endangered plant, the blazing star. Jenningsbloom

History

This first humans arrived in the Jennings Environmental Education Area nearly 15,000 years ago. These paleo-Indians followed the receding

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s at the end of the ice age in pursuit of

wooly mammoth Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...

s and

giant ground sloth ''Megatherium'' ( ; from Greek () 'great' + () 'beast') is an extinct genus of ground sloths endemic to South America that lived from the Early Pliocene through the end of the Pleistocene. It is best known for the elephant-sized type species ' ...

s. It is believed that overhunting the mammoths and sloths lead to their eventual

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

ion. The

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

settled in the area and began to

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

the land by the end of the 16th century. They used fire to open areas for farming. This may have helped to sustain the prairie environment that is currently at Jennings Environmental Education Center. European pioneers from the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...

and

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...

passed through the area and used the Venango Path an Indian trail, portions of which have since been paved over by Pennsylvania Route 528. The trail extended from

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Franklin Franklin may refer to: People * Franklin (given name) * Franklin (surname) * Franklin (class), a member of a historical English social class Places Australia * Franklin, Tasmania, a township * Division of Franklin, federal electoral d ...

. It was used by historical figures such as

Tecumseh Tecumseh ( ; October 5, 1813) was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and ...

Marquis de LaFayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revoluti ...

and

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

. The area was not heavily settled until the 1800s. The first settlers cleared the land of its standing trees and began farming. The land was not ideal for farming and soon people looked for other uses of the land. They discovered

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

and the

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

of coal became a booming industry in Western Pennsylvania. Jennings Environmental Education Center is named for Dr. Otto Emery Jennings. He was a renowned

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

who searched throughout Pennsylvania for unique plant species. He discovered the Prairie in 1905 and was instrumental in the purchase and protection of the area by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Jennings ensured that the area would be protected for the enjoyment and future education of many generations of Pennsylvanians. It became a nature reserve in 1952. Jennings Environmental Education Center was established in 1979. Directly across Route 8 from the park is the Old Stone House which is owned and operated by

Slippery Rock University Slippery Rock University, formally Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania (The Rock or SRU), is a public university in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. SRU is a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). The university ...

. The house served as a tavern and inn from 1822 until the mid-1800s.

and

Christopher Gist Christopher Gist (1706–1759) was an explorer, surveyor, and frontiersman active in Colonial America. He was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country (the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and nort ...

also traveled through the vicinity in 1753 while on their historic mission to

Fort LeBoeuf Fort Le Bœuf (often referred to as Fort de la Rivière au Bœuf) was a fort established by the French during 1753 on a fork of French Creek (in the drainage area of the River Ohio), in present-day Waterford, in northwest Pennsylvania. The fort ...

prior to the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

. Interpretive signs and information regarding Washington's Trail are located in Jennings and at the Old Stone House. The Old Stone House is open on weekends and tours and programs take place regularly throughout the year. The neighboring Foltz Schoolhouse is located on Jennings property and is in the process of being restored.

Nearby state parks

The following state parks are within of Jennings Environmental Education Center: ''Note: shows Jennings Environmental Education Center'' *

(Butler County) * McConnells Mill State Park ( Lawrence County) *

Maurice K. Goddard State Park Maurice K. Goddard State Park is a List of Pennsylvania state parks, Pennsylvania state park in Deer Creek Township, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Deer Creek, Mill Creek Township, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Mill Creek, New Vernon Township, Mercer ...

( Mercer County)

References

External links

* {{authority control Parks in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area State parks of Pennsylvania Protected areas established in 1979 Parks in Butler County, Pennsylvania Education in Butler County, Pennsylvania Nature centers in Pennsylvania Protected areas of Butler County, Pennsylvania