The Cayuga Nature Center (CNC) is an educational institution addressing nature and environmental issues. It is located on the west side of

Cayuga Lake Cayuga Lake (,,) is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and second largest in volume. It is just under long. Its average width is , and it is ...

Tompkins County, New York Tompkins County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 105,740. The county seat is Ithaca. The name is in honor of Daniel D. Tompkins, who served as Governor of New York and Vice President ...

History

CNC traces its history back to the Cayuga Preventorium, founded in 1914, which was a non-profit organization that provided a

summer camp A summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as ''campers''. Summer school is usually a part of the academ ...

on the east side of

for children exposed to

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

. As tuberculosis cases diminished, the Preventorium sponsored the Cardiac Clinic to serve underprivileged children afflicted with heart disease. In 1936, Ernest T. Paine donated 75 acres of land on the west side of Cayuga Lake, at the current Cayuga Nature Center property, "for the health and welfare of the children of Tompkins County". Construction of the Cayuga Preventorium Lodge on the property was completed by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

in 1939. The Preventorium summer camp ran until 1942, where diminishing cases of tuberculosis, competition from other summer camps, and staff reductions due to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

forced the camp to close its doors. The lodge was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2021. After the war,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

leased the facility as housing for graduate students. In the 1960s, the lodge was reopened as a conference center to be used year-round. Under a new program sponsored by the State Education Department, the

Board of Cooperative Educational Services The Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES //) is a program of shared educational services provided to school districts by the New York State Legislature. History BOCES owes its origin to a state legislative enactment authorizing the ...

(BOCES) began to offer the site for outdoor education programs. Based on the success of the program, BOCES, Onondaga Nature Centers, Inc., and the Ithaca City School District collaborated to open the Preventorium as a Nature Center in 1975. Dubbed the Cayuga Nature Center four years later, the center was incorporated as a private non-profit organization in 1981. In January 2011, having experienced funding difficulties, CNC merged with the

Paleontological Research Institution The Paleontological Research Institution, or PRI, is a paleontological organization in Ithaca, New York, with a mission including both research and education. PRI is affiliated with Cornell University, houses one of the largest fossil collecti ...

, with programs continuing at both locations.

Facilities

The Cayuga Nature Center is located three miles south of Taughannock Falls State Park on the west shore of Cayuga Lake. The CNC Lodge is heated by a biomass furnace designed and installed as a Cornell engineering student project and features exhibits combining live, mounted, and fossil specimens with interactive stations to highlight the ecology and biodiversity of the Cayuga Basin. CNC's other facilities include Smith Woods, an old-growth forest; TreeTops, a six-story tree house built by the Ithaca High School class of 2000;, a zoological collection consisting of 30 animals; a seasonal Butterfly Garden, a turtle pond; and a 120-acre campus with five miles of hiking trails.

Smith Woods

Henry A. Smith Woods is a 32-acre old-growth forest in

Trumansburg, New York Trumansburg is a village in Tompkins County, New York, United States. The population was 1,797 at the 2010 census. The name incorporates a misspelling of the surname of the founder, Abner Treman. The Tremans spelled their surname several different ...

. The forest was originally owned by New York City businessman Henry Atterbury Smith, who used it intermittently as a summer residence. In 1909, his sons left the property to the Village of Trumansburg to be used as a public park. Ownership of the forest was transferred to the Cayuga Nature Center in 2007, where it continues to be preserved and used as an educational and recreational site.

Programs

CNC offers day summer and school's out day camps as well as year-round programs and classes focusing on environmental issues and natural history. Programs and classes are available for all ages and include animal encounters, and outdoor educational programs that cover survival skills, ecology, and geology, among other topics. CNC also offers seasonal programs on maple sugaring, making apple cider, butterflies and moths in the Butterfly Garden, and winter ecology.

Discovery Trail

The Cayuga Nature Center is a part of Ithaca’s Discovery Trail, which features the center and seven other educational institutions in the area: the Museum of the Earth, the

Cornell Lab of Ornithology The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuar ...

, the Cornell Botanic Gardens, the History Center, the Johnson Museum of Art, the Sciencenter, and the Tompkins County Public Library.

References

External links

* {{authority control Museums in Tompkins County, New York Nature centers in New York (state) Natural history museums in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Ithaca, New York Tourist attractions in Ithaca, New York National Register of Historic Places in Tompkins County, New York