Welcome to the
Panther Creek Nature Center
We are a 28 acre-nature center located in Durham, NC. We are open year-round and offer ways to connect with nature for folks of all ages. Come check us out!
Our mission is to facilitate experiences that connect people with themselves, one another, and the living world around us. Visitors are invited to walk around our gardens, build a fort in the woods, take a stroll on our trails, or walk down to Falls Lake and Panther Creek. There are birds to see, critters to observe, and native plants to admire!
Panther Creek Nature Center was designed for young families to get outside together. PCNC offers 4 amazing programs- Living Landscapes, Forest Babies, Family Camping, and Art Barn. Learn about getting involved below.
Living Landscapes
Learning to welcome life back into our local landscapes!
Living Landscapes is a program focused on creating beautiful spaces for human and non-human creatures to grow and thrive! Participants will learn how to welcome pollinators into our gardens, how to care for native plants, encourage amphibians into our yards, and how to garden alongside wildlife. These programs are 3 hours in length and take place on our 28-acre Nature Center campus. This program is to designed to introduce participants into creating beautiful, living gardens. Participants will get to tour our gardens, practice planting annual and perennial plants, understand the basics of healthy soil, and how to bring life into their gardens. Every participant will get to take home a beautiful native plant (species will change based on the season)
No prior experience in gardening is necessary.
Forest Babies
Getting our young humans (0-2 years old) outside in the natural world!
Forest Babies is an awesome program that we designed for children 0-2 years old (although older children are always welcome)! As parents, all want our children to grow up happy and healthy. Part of this journey is trying to connect our little ones with the plants and animals that live around us. But sometimes it is hard to find the time to get outside often or to share in outdoor adventures together.
Our goal with Forest Babies is to create the time and space to make these little adventures happen. Forest Babies is an outdoor play time for little humans and their caretakers (parents, grandparents, nannies, friends, etc.) Forest Babies is designed to be a one-off program or as an activity that families attend over and over again. Each session will follow a similar “flow” of activities. However, every week will be a little bit different based on the weather, the season, and who we have in attendance. To learn more about dates and rates, please visit our programs page.
Family Camping
Tents, smores, campfires, nature walks, crafts & more!
Family Camping is our program for families who want to have exciting adventures together! We place a special focus in this program on empowering families to tent camp with their children- especially if it is a first time experience.
No prior camping experience required.
These camping trips give kids and their families a chance to have adventures, meet new friends, and sleep under the stars. Campouts happen on select weekends throughout the year. All Family Camping experiences offer hands-on activities like crafting, singing, story telling, and nature walks. These activities are led by Eliza Lawdley, our founder & environmental educator (along with her two children). Eliza has years of experience camping & backpacking with kids of all ages at the Green River Preserve. Think of Family Camping at PCNC as a blend of scouting and summer camp- but for the entire family!
This program is especially geared towards children ages 1-10 with their parents/caregivers. Of course if you have children over the age of 10 who would like to attend with their younger siblings, that is wonderful. All are welcome!
Art Barn
Painting, drawing, textiles, nature crafts, and more!
Art Barn is a program designed for adults and children who want to get outside, unwind, and tap into their creative sides. Each of our Art Barn classes is taught by instructors who are passionate about their work. We offer a variety of classes in painting, drawing, textiles, hand crafts and more. You are welcome to sign up for classes as a group or individually. We cap each class at 12-15 participants, depending on the class. Some classes are designed for more experienced artists and some are designed for beginners. Check out our seasonal offerings below and we hope to see you soon! If you are an artist that would like to teach a class, please contact us! We love guest instructors.
“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart.
If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.”
Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods
