The board of directors for Ozark Natural Science Center expressed gratitude Tuesday for the many volunteers and financial gifts over the 21 years it has offered children’s programs, but wouldn’t detail the financial constraints behind the impending closure of the center.
A news release issued Tuesday by interim Executive Director Jenny Harmon served as the official announcement of the suspension of a residential environmental education program and a summer camp program in May.
“Despite the loyal and enthusiastic support of so many Arkansas and Oklahoma residents through the years, the expenses of the ONSC’s programs have continued to exceed the revenues generated by those programs,” the news release states.
Jenny Garrett, president of the board of directors, said she would not answer questions about how much revenue exceeded expenses or about the organization’s primary funding sources.
Kathy Short, a f ifthgrade teacher at Thurman G. Smith Elementary in Fayetteville, has taken about 100 children annually for more than 10 years to Ozark Natural Science Center. Children raise money for the trip all year long, though no child is excluded if he can’t pay.
“It gives them a chance to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom,” she said. “We’re able to see them in a different setting.”
Short said she received a letter last year from a former student who is now studying to be a doctor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The student wrote that experiences like going to the science center influence children for a lifetime.
Short said she took her last group of fifth-graders two weeks ago. She said the center has excellent instructors and nice facilities.
“I’m sick,” Short said of programs being suspended. “Everybody is.”
Alan Wilbourn, spokesman for the Fayetteville School District, said many principals reported they sent students to the science center in the past and hate to see it close. The cost became prohibitive to send students, he said.
Ken and RuAnn Ewing founded the center in 1990 to provide hands-on education about the environment to schoolchildren. The first summer camp programs were offered in 1992 and the school programs began in 1994.
“Their vision was very much to have a residential field science program for students in Arkansas so that students would understand the Ozarks,” Harmon said. “It’s wonderful out here. It’s not a textbook. They’re out in the field.”
School programs immersed fifth-graders in a two-day, one-night field exploration led by a staff of teacher naturalists.
By the end of the school year, the center will have accommodated 2,760 schoolchildren, mostly fifth-graders, Harmon said. The school program has fluctuated from 700 children in the beginning to as many as 3,800. The center charges $134 per student for one night and two days, but the costs exceed that, Harmon said.
The organization has run on a shoestring budget for years, she said. The last school program is scheduled for May 23. The staff will be laid off.
The center’s campus encompasses 500 acres of Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission land in the Bear Hollow Natural Area, about three miles east of Arkansas 23 between Eureka Springs and Huntsville.
Board members Cathy Wissehr and Tony Bornhoft referred questions about the nonprofit organization’s finances to Garrett.
“It’s certainly been a positive contribution to pretty much every fifth-grader that went out there,” Bornhoft said. “It will be sorely missed.”
A tax form for the OzarkNatural Science Center shows that the organization received $772,949 in revenue and spent $754,072 from July 30, 2010 through June 30, 2011. The school program cost $406,889, but generated $483,985 in revenue.
The organization spent $32,032 on the summer camp program, according to the tax form, but received $32,775. Special events and retreats for 161 outside groups cost $23,336, with the organization receiving $24,461.
Children remember experiences such as spending the night at Ozark Natural Science Center for years, said Wissehr, an assistant professor of elementary science education at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
The experience includes roasting marshmallows by campfire and going on night hikes looking for owls, she said. They experience sitting quietly and listening for 20 to 30 minutes, a diversion from a busy schedule of sports and activities.
“A lot of them have not been to a river,” Wissehr said.
At the center, they learn to catch crayfish, she said. They track turtles in the same manner that scientists track animals.
Wissehr often asks college students in her science methods class if they visited Ozark Natural Science Center. Many of them can describe their experiences in vivid detail, she said.
The questions come up when they talk about taking children outside to learn about science, she said. The teachers-to-be often express concern that children will be wild outside, but they find that children are focused and engaged outside when they have a task to accomplish.
With pressures to prepare children for state tests, schools are not sending children on field trips as much as they once did, she said.
“I think they’re poorer for not having had those experiences,” Wissehr said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 02/27/2013