Community celebrates newly expanded Hidden Oaks Nature Center
The Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Annandale welcomed the community to a grand reopening celebration July 16 featuring remarks by local leaders, live performances, children’s activities, and nature demonstrations.
The celebration introduced the public to the newly expanded nature center. There’s a big new classroom with a kitchen area, renovated bathrooms compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act standards, new administrative offices, a 3D microscope, and reading corner.
New outdoor features include a pond, pavilion, landscaping, and kid-friendly water pump.
Hidden Oaks, Fairfax County’s first nature center, has been educating children about wildlife and the environment for the past 53 years.
Mason Supervisor Penny Gross lauded Hidden Oaks for teaching children to appreciate nature. “We need to ensure that our aging and well-loved parks and our entire park system have the resources to keep moving forward,” she said.
Gross said the Board of Supervisors “values and understands our park system and looks forward to working with the Park Authority to upgrade and improve existing facilities, create lots of new opportunities, and open the doors wide to ensure an equitable and accessible system for all.”
Funds for the $1.7 million Hidden Oaks expansion project are from a 2016 park bond. The Fairfax County Park Foundation, Bailey’s Crossroads Rotary Club, and Transurban also contributed to the upgrades, and several Eagle Scouts carried out improvements at Nature Playce.
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Thank you Ellie for attending the grand reopening and showcasing many new features at Hidden Oaks. Also new are three outdoor interpretive trails. The Storybook Trail, in English, Spanish and Korean, leads from the Packard Center to Hidden Oaks with a story and fun facts. The Woodland Animal QR trail follows the Old Oak Trail that loops around behind Hidden Oaks with videos of local animals “talking” about their babies in both English and Spanish. The tracks trail, which also is along the Old Oak Trail, now has a scavenger hunt activity to compliment the guessing game. The nature center is open weekends 12-5 and weekdays 9-5 with the exception that the nature center is closed to walk-in visitors on Tuesdays.