The Big Hill |
What is the Big Hill?
The Big Hill Environmental Learning Center is an area rich in diverse plant and animal communities and habitat: wetland, prairie, oak savanna, and woodland, owned jointly by the DeForest Area School District and the Town of Windsor. It has been a Wisconsin School Forest since 2004. The main goal of the Big Hill is Insuring that the property is maintained as an environmental, learning outdoor classroom. The Big Hill is open to the public from sunrise to sunset.
What is the Big Hill's History?
Survey records of 1834 indicate a rolling prairie thinly timbered with bur, black, and white oak. Because of its location near wetlands, native Americans may have used this hill as a camp or lookout, and during the Civil War it was used for target practice. The next century it was a University of Wisconsin ski hill. Later a gravel quarry was started to the south of the hill; the north end is cultivated farmland. In the 1990's Cecile and Bernadine Smith and Fred and Helen Chase generously established 62 acres as a nature preserve and environmental learning center for the local schools and community.
What is going on at the Big Hill?
- Student activities led by experienced teachers of environmental education
- Student seed gathering and planting activities
- Maintenance of facilities: benches, dock, shed, shelter, birdhouses, soil pits, tracking boxes, pond bank reinforcement, etc.
- Classroom extension opportunities for New Reflections, the high school alternative education program
- Quarterly community clean-ups, control of invasive plants, and brush removal
- Water quality observations
Rules at the Big Hill:
- Picnics, vehicles, bikes, camping, and hunting are not permitted
- Leave your pets home; seeds collect and spread from their coats
- Protect natural areas by staying on trails
- Leave animal burrows and nests alone
- Leave plants, plant parts, animals, rocks, and artifacts where you found them
- Take your trash with you
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