Interested in taking a class? Click here to see a complete list of upcoming educational programs.
Fall Family Funday!
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCCelebrate the fall season with a fun-filled afternoon of hands-on nature activities at the Garden! Meet carnivorous plants, enjoy live animal encounters, craft a leaf crown and magic wand, win a prize at the “plant walk”, go on a scavenger hunt, play nature games, and more. Locopops and other snacks will be available for purchase.
Scratchboard: The Knife and the Quill: Virtual
VirtualScratchboard is the process of removing ink with a knife blade to create a black and white illustration. Using different angles of a blade can produce the look of fine lace or a traditional woodcut with strong, bold lines. Using both an angled knife blade and a flexible ink quill, students will explore the wonderful variety of textures achievable using two very simple instruments.
Hybrid Lunchbox Talk: Long Mountain Slopes, and Unique Protected Plants of the Uwharries
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCInside the Uwharrie National Forest, lies Long Mountain Slopes, a NC Plant Conservation Program Preserve. The Long Mountain Preserve is a 233-acre property composed of mature hardwood forest and a variety of native plant species including two species of concern, Mountain Camellia and Piedmont Indigo Bush. Long Mountain Slopes was purchased in 2004 from the Blair family by Three Rivers Land Trust, previously known as The Land Trust for Central North Carolina, which is a non-profit organization that has been working to conserve special natural areas, family farms, rural landscapes, and historic places since 1995. In 2005, the tract was placed under a conservation easement and transferred to the NC Plant Conservation Program.
School’s Out Camp: Weird & Wonderful Wildlife
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCLooking for something for your nature enthusiast when school’s out but you still have to work? Get them outdoors and into nature at the Garden! Led by our staff environmental educators, your child will discover the weird and wonderful, creepy and crawly wildlife that calls the Garden home through a variety of fun and educational activities, games, stories, and crafts.
Flowering Plant Families: Virtual
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCThis course builds on the information covered in Plant Taxonomy and focuses on the study of plant diversity by targeting twenty major and fairly stable plant families of flowering plants found in North Carolina. Classroom discussions of evolutionary adaptations and relationships are combined with close-up examination of representative examples. In this virtual class, pre-recorded lectures will be shared ahead of live Zoom discussions.
Peak of Autumn at Penny’s Bend
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCExplore the fall landscape of this 84-acre natural area in northeast Durham, and learn about how the Garden manages this unique property. Surrounded on three sides by the Eno River, Penny's Bend Nature Preserve encompasses mature forests and prairies with regionally rare plants.
Annual Jenny Elder Fitch Memorial Lecture: Moveable Gardens and Commensal Tables: Rooting in an Age of Displacement
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCHumans have been moving with plants as their traveling companions since the beginning of time. Currently, in a period of impactful and reinforcing industrialization, globalization, and strife known as the Anthropocene, this movement has dramatically escalated in tempo and scale. In this presentation, I will address how remembrance embedded in seeds counters destruction of homelands, fragmentation of habitats, and cultural alienation, and how sanctuary is sought in gardening, cooking, and community building.
Hybrid Lunchbox Talk: Leave Your Leaves!
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCFall is here and this year why not leave your leaves! Leaving your leaves is one way to change some of the forces at work behind the twin problems of the climate crisis and the loss of biodiversity. Leaving your leaves will make your yard a better habitat for birds, fireflies and butterflies. It will enrich your soil, create less stormwater runoff and lessen air and noise pollution. Learn how preserving the leaf litter in your yard is a great thing you can do for your local ecosystems and to increase the enjoyment of nature in your own backyard.
Two-Day Papermaking Practicum: NC Paper
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCExpect a hands on sheet making journey with local plant fibers. Learn how to identify and harvest plants for hand papermaking. Learn how to process, pulp, press, create sheets and dry textured papers, learn to create formation aids, the vocabulary - learn processes that can be recreated at home with simple equipment. Expect to learn about inclusions, overlays, natural dyes and have access to natural dye vats including indigo grown by the instructor. Build a supply of paper for printing, drawing, writing and book arts or create imagery using fresh pulp and creative techniques.
Intermediate Traditional Watercolor
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NCThis course builds upon the knowledge and skills of Beginning Watercolor. Using live botanical specimens, students apply basic drawing and watercolor skills to create detailed, realistic watercolor studies of individual plant structures such as stems, twigs, leaves, petals, flowers, pods, and fruit. Classes cover such topics as creating the illusion of depth and volume and portraying shape, color, and textural details accurately.