URBANA, Ill. (WAND) - The Anita Purves Nature Center is nature in all its glory and serves as a a place where you can explore and learn about what is right in your backyard. 

As part of the Urbana Park District, the center is a hands-on experiential environmental education facility. The center has exhibits and a wildlife observation room. Outside the nature center, they have the Friendship Grove nature playscape hiking trails into the Busey Woods.

The center has wildlife-like screecher owls, snakes (and) even turtles to get up close and personal with nature. The environmental program manager, Savannah Donovan, told WAND News they have plenty of hands-on material.

"There's lots of drawers full of exhibits, so we invite everybody to really explore while you're in there, open up the drawers. touch things, you know, we've got sound drawers with bird calls and frog calls. We have information about mammals, birds, Illinois geology, plants and trees," Donovan said. 

Donovan said the center can help you understand what you see in your everyday life.

"We can help you understand things that you see in your own backyard in your own neighborhood, you know, you might wonder, what is this plant, is it safe. What is the sound I've been hearing outside," Donovan said.

The center can even answer some concerns you might have with what lives in your neighborhood. 

The center is meant to make you feel more connected to the natural world around you. It's free to the public and open every day of the week but Sunday.