Nature At The Confluence
Nature at the Confluence (NATC) allows visitors to discover nature right in the middle of an urban area! The center is located on property surrounded by the Rock River, Turtle Creek and Kelly Creek, and you’ll find scenic beauty during every season. The campus offers a 5-acre prairie restoration, learning gardens, pollinator gardens and we have programs throughout the year for all ages and interests!
New Custom Experiences
NATC is now offering unique, interactive activities specially designed for small, private groups from 4 to 6 people and are customizable for all ages. Your group will be the only people at this private experience guided by one of our naturalists.
Custom Experiences make a great for gift as they can be used throughout the next year. You will receive an attractive gift certificate via email that you’ll use to redeem your experience.
Custom Experiences Available:
- Detecting the Past—Metal Detecting Adventure
- Eagles & Owls: A Private Confluence Experience
- Monarch Magic: A Private Confluence Experience
- Nature Discovery Guided Walk: A Private Confluence Experience
- Time Travelers—Private Interactive Experience
- Walkabout, Fire & S’mores: A Private Confluence Experience
Click here to purchase your custom experience!
Things to Do at Nature at the Confluence
NATC is more than just a nature retreat; it offers outdoor learning gardens. You’ll enjoy looking through the Pollinator Garden, Sensory Garden, Stone Soup Garden, and Tasting Garden. You will not only learn more about pollinators and healthy herbs, but feel, smell, and taste the herbs too!
In addition, it offers an ideal place for children to take a break from city life and enjoy the beauty of nature. The Lorax Children’s Garden is themed after The Borax – a children’s book about dangers to the environment, written by Dr. Seuss. Children can read copies of the book inside the Learning Center or while walking through the prairie – laminated pages of the book are placed on sign posts throughout the path. They also offer fun activities like a Nature Seeker Scavenger Hunt for people of all ages.
The prairie restoration area is home to native plants such as Black-eyed Susan, Yellow Coneflower, and Mountain Mint. You’re welcome to stroll through the area, walk the gravel-packed trails, and paddle your way through the confluence of the Turtle Creek and the Rock River. You can even spot swans, white pelicans, beaver, various species of ducks, other waterfowl, or the occasional deer, fox and coyote along the banks. An island area provides a safe home for a pair of nesting eagles.
NATC holds various themed programs depending on the season, one being Monarch Magic. The facility has been raising monarchs and releasing them into a healthy nearby environment. You can come in and see the eggs, the caterpillars, and the beautiful monarch butterflies and learn how to raise them. The center hosts several similar family-friendly programs that are free or request a small donation.
History of Nature at the Confluence
This urban environment center sits amid 10 acres of restored prairie area. Located halfway along the newly designated national Rock River Trail, the land has been used and explored by humans for more than 13,000 years. Ancient hunters, native American mound-builders, French fur traders, and today’s river explorers have all traversed the waters and lands of this area. This history of the space along the banks of the Turtle Creek and Rock River make the Confluence an appropriate site to tell a very important story about urban ecology.
The land itself was not originally a prairie but a natural marshy wetland. Over the past seventy years the wetland was transformed into a dumpsite – industrial fill was brought in to raise the land ten feet. When one enters the campus and sees the beautiful prairie plants, the idea that this was a dumpsite just over a year ago is rather unbelievable. This $2.2 million project spearheaded by Beloit 2020, overseen by Therese Oldenburg, and pushed into reality thanks to selfless volunteers and donors tells a story of coming together as a community to give back to nature.
Future Plans for Nature at the Confluence
NATC owns seventy more acres of property in the surrounding area that they are restoring and building up in phases. The project aims to ultimately become one of the largest urban ecology centers in the Midwest. Projects to restore Kelly Creek are also underway – this creek was once a clean spring that flowed into the Rock River. After the 1940s, it was buried under roads and filled with waste, and today it emerges from a culvert pipe and into the prairie area. NATC is working to clean up the creek and build a woodland trail to provide access to it.
Put on your walking shoes and drop by at the confluence for a recreational and educational retreat – the Learning Center is open Tuesday to Sunday, but the park, trail, and prairie area are accessible every day, from dawn to dusk!
Nature At The Confluence
306 Dickop Street
South Beloit, IL 61080
815-200-6910
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