Engaging In Our Environment

Newaygo Conservation District executive director, Lucas Cotton, engages middle school students in Soil Chemistry at Kropscott Farm Environmental Center.

Kropscott Farm Environmental Center Hosts Winter Social Event

Monday, February 20th, Kropscott Farm Environmental Center (KFEC) will host a community open house to celebrate winter from 1:00 pm until 4:00.  Visitors will enjoy a winter hike, bonfire with s’mores and hot cocoa, and a lesson on identifying winter trees.  This event is made possible through a generous donation from Magna Mirrors of Newaygo.

In the mid-1990s, Earle and Mildred Kropscott donated their 80 acre farm, six miles north of Fremont, to the Newaygo Conservation District. The Kropscott's wishes for this property were that it be used for educational and agricultural purposes, as well as scientific studies pertaining to the environment and our natural resources.  In the late 90’s, funding was secured to construct learning labs and a dark-sky observatory named for former Fremont Earth and Space science teacher Stephen Wessling. 
 
In addition to being the home of the Stephen Wessling Observatory, the Kropscott property also contains Kropscott Farm Environmental Center.  As per Kropscott's wishes, environmental education coexists with agriculture here.  Visitors will see ecologically responsible farming in action. 

KFEC’s environmental education pairs community outreach with a variety of lessons targeting middle school students. Community outreach events have included sun viewing using special solar telescopes, hay rides, learning the science behind fall colors, ice cream making, and apple cider tasting.
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According to Lucas Cotton, executive director of the Newaygo Conservation District, “The main thing we want to convey is our desire to help our community engage with their environment in a way that is real and meaningful to them.  We hope that this would result in a more unified community that will share their thoughts and ideas with us and each other, leading to sustainably managed natural resources both in publicly shared spaces as well as their privately owned lands.  How do we use our natural resources to meet current needs without jeopardizing their use by future generations? This is the question we hope to answer together.”

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