DECATUR, Il. (WAND) -- After nearly a year of construction, Rock Springs Nature Center finally has its newest exhibit.
"So this exhibit is called 'more than corn' -- investigating Illinois's geology. I think when a lot of people think about habitats and ecosystems in Illinois they get clouded by all the corn and beans," Rock Springs Nature Center Manager Alysia Callison said. "But we do have some amazing habitats and ecological features throughout the state, so we kind of wanted to tell people about those and encourage them to get out and explore Illinois."
Richie Wolf took over as the executive director of the nature center a year ago -- it was his vision immediately to renovate the exhibit and upgrade its welcome center.
"Anytime we can change the exhibits you know -- the exhibit was empty during construction but now that it is completed we were able to as a staff get it ready for the public," Wolf said.
The construction of the exhibit did provide challenges for the Macon county conservation district: group contact was limited because of the pandemic, so this exhibit was a solo job -- which is why it took longer to complete.
"Sometimes some of these projects that take two to three people, you have to make do with one person and that one person has to make do with all of the responsibilities to kind of limp through so a project that may have taken only three months has doubled in time,"Â Macon County Conservation District Operations Manager Shane Ravellette said.
Now the nature center is finally getting to experience some normalcy at its facility.
"We've been chomping at the bit to get back out there and educate people so yeah -- we were really excited to put a new exhibit in," Callison said.
You can find the hours to the nature center on their website to see when you can check out the new exhibit.Â
