As a preview to Earth Day, Iowa’s only National Monument is hosting a variety of events this weekend and all through next week. Ken Block is chief ranger at Effigy Mounds National Monument in the northeast Iowa community of Harpers Ferry. Block says there are environment-based activities for all ages, and some just for kids.
The Junior Ranger program will include a lot of hands-on activities for children starting at 1 P.M. today, including natural history items like furs and a hike along the boardwalk trail into the wetlands. Other events over the next nine days will include: bird walks, nature walks, woodland wildflower walks and a special Earth Day Walk on Tuesday.
Block says Earth Day, which is always on April 22nd, coincides with National Park Week, so they try to offer a host of programs on weekends and weekdays that get people out into the beautiful park for walks. Next Saturday, April 26th, he says they’ll host a rather unusual event called a Garlic Mustard Clean-up. Volunteers are needed to help find and pluck the invasive weeds.
He says the plant is choking out all the other plant life and needs to be cleaned up and the only way to do that is to yank it up by its roots in the early spring as it starts to appear. For more information about the variety of events, visit the Effigy Mounds National Monument website at: www.nps.gov/efmo .