Bluff Lake Nature Center

Bluff Lake Nature Center educates individuals to be engaged, resilient, and curious; conserves a natural area in the city; furthers equity in outdoor access; and nurtures the health and well-being of communities and ecosystems.

Vision: A place where people and nature coexist and thrive.

After the former Stapleton Airport closed in 1994, the land left behind was damaged and in desperate need of restoration. Bluff Lake Nature Center was established to manage the site, protected under the terms of a settlement agreement between the City and County of Denver and the Sierra Club, which cited excessive pollution from the airport. As part of the settlement, Denver agreed to preserve the Bluff Lake area and invest over $3 million to enhance wildlife habitat, restore the banks of Sand Creek, build an interpretive trail system, and construct open-air shelters. BLNC took ownership of the property in 2008, and much of our organization’s early years were spent performing site stewardship projects including planting native species of trees and grasses, reinforcing our 100+ year old dam to ensure that our lake would hold water year-round, and creating trails and overlook areas where families could come enjoy the outdoors. The success of our early efforts is evident by the 350+ animal species that call BLNC home and the thriving habitats (wetland, riparian, and prairie) that continue to grow every year.

Over the years, BLNC has realized that while conservation is still a vital part of our mission, education is where our power lies. Our education team adapts our programs to answer the needs of the diverse community we serve, including field trips and free family programs. Thousands of families live within a few miles of BLNC, including the neighborhoods of Montbello, Northwest Aurora, Park Hill, Commerce City and Central Park. Making nature accessible is a driving factor for us, which is why we offer free entrance to the site 365 days a year from dawn to dusk, free prek-high school field trips and bus reimbursements for Title I schools, and a vast majority of our programs and events are free. We know that formative experiences like the ones kids have at BLNC are incredibly valuable to their educational success and future careers.

Bluff Lake Nature Center is a 123 acre wildlife refuge and outdoor classroom in the midst of a growing city. Our vision is to create a place where people and nature coexist and thrive. We work toward this vision with our mission: to educate individuals to be engaged, resilient, and curious; to conserve a natural area in the city; to further equity in outdoor access; and to nurture the health and well-being of communities and ecosystems. Our holistic approach to conservation and education combines programs and outreach with a focus on making nature experiences accessible and welcoming to communities that are met with barriers to the outdoors. Our Making Nature Accessible programs are expanding through collaboration with community organizations. Access to the outdoors is important now more than ever, with the effects on physical, mental, and emotional health needed in low-income BIPOC communities that so often lack resources and spaces for their families.

Bluff Lake provides STEM education to schools via classroom presentations and site field trips. We educate and engage our neighbors of all ages via free, family friendly programs including monthly Bird Walks, Family Adventure Days, Forest Bathing (Shinrin-Yoku), Qigong and Mindfulness Walks. This free programming is very important to us as our mission is to connect people with nature, regardless of their socioeconomic background. We want to encourage people, especially young BIPOC, to feel comfortable, confident, included, and ready to explore the outdoors, as well as serving as a gateway to considering a career in the outdoors industry or world of STEM. Our industry focused too long on one specific audience, so we measure how we are reaching those isolated audiences and changing their feelings towards the outdoors and outdoors careers.

Bluff Lake has 10 weeks of STEM based day school break camps and after school programs during the school year. Camps are geared for ages 5-11 with Junior Counselor opportunities available for ages 12-17. The camps blend nature exploration, science activities, games, crafts, and unstructured free play. 2022’s camps and after school programs will offer 12.5% scholarship spots, an increase of 7% from 2021. As the popularity of our out-of-school programs has increased, we have focused on the importance of enrichment learning opportunities for underserved communities, especially during the summer months, when learning loss is particularly evident, and camp opportunities are costly.

Environmental education taught with discovery-based methods create resilient, engaged, and curious citizens who will develop a love for discovery and passion for protecting nature. And as our partners at Generation Wild Northeast Metro Coalition have said, just 20 minutes outside turns a kid into a kid again.

Through Bluff Lake’s programs and partnerships with other local organizations, we are creating a new generation of nature lovers eager to protect and enjoy the environment. Our location allows us to focus on a diverse group of children, knowing that formative experiences like these are incredibly valuable to their educational success and future careers.

This funding will allow us to reach a wider audience and continue to serve the growing number of Bluff Lake visitors . Funding will also enable us to better conserve the site, which needs increased maintenance (trail repair, trash/waste, impact mitigation) due to the drastic rise in visitors.

HOW DO GET INVOLVED: 

We have many site stewardship opportunities, including trash pick up, weed warriors, family/group volunteer projects.

We also have a Youth Ambassadors programs, where youth people (under 18) can be our new generation of advocates, by serving as docents and survey-takers at Bluff Lake, and letting us know about what they want to see as we grow.