The Environmental Learning Center at Drumlin Farm
Transforming environmental education at Drumlin Farm, Mass Audubon, and beyond
Campaign Completed |
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Thank you for your support!
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Understanding our relationship with the natural world is more important than ever. Education is at the core of Drumlin Farm’s mission, and our nature-based camps, workshops, preschool, and school programs cultivate environmental and science literacy in uniquely flexible and compelling ways.
The Environmental Learning Center (ELC) campaign reached its goal in spring 2018 thanks to the generous support of hundreds of individuals, families, and foundations, and the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund. The building opened in June 2018, and it stands as a celebration of green design and environmental education.
Environmental Education for a Sustainable Future
Drumlin Farm’s ELC will support our ever-evolving programs for decades to come. The new 3,700 square foot single-story building and its sister structure, the open-air Bluebird Pavilion, are now the hub from which all of Drumlin Farm’s environmental education programming flows. They are the home-base—both literally and metaphorically—of the programs through which we realize our educational mission.
Committed to Solar Power
Thanks to $60,000 TernSOLAR matching grant from the Tern Foundation, Drumlin Farm was able to install a powerful rooftop solar array on top of the Environmental ELC.
The array is the largest Mass Audubon solar installation to date, and its 42.84-kilowatt system of 119 rooftop panels is "net-positive," annually generating more energy than the building will consume. Excess production will be used to power the nearby Crossroads Barn, the vegetable wash station, public restrooms on the farmyard road, and the deer pen, with any remaining energy production sold back to the grid.