Frick Park Environmental Center

The Frick Environmental Center is the center of nature education at Frick Park. The current Frick Environmental Center began offering environmental education programs in1979, and has since hosted thousands of area children for field lessons, nature hikes, and summer camps. Currently, the Center offers year-​round programs for the public, including birding, composting, weed identification, and nature photography. The Center’s also offers outreach programs that will bring environmental education into local schools.
Unfortunately, the Center’s main building burned down in 2002 and the Environmental Center staff currently hosts courses in the gatehouse buildings. There are proposals for a new Environmental Center, which would provide the space necessary for expanded programs. Pittsburgh Parks Conservacy has produced a business plan, selected a design team and has begun accepting proposals for a new building. Educational programming plans are underway and public meetings have been held to find out what the community wants from a new Environmental Center. This all would be a tremendous boon for the city because the Frick Environmental Center offers programs for people of all ages on the park’s habitats and ecology.
The Frick Park Environmental Center serves as the gateway to the 151-​acre Frick Woods Nature Reserve. Henry Clay Frick wished that the people of Pittsburgh have an undeveloped wildlife area to enjoy and so he bequeathed this area of the park in his will. This section of the park is filled with native plants and provides an extensive wildlife habitat. A good proportion of Frick Park consists of wetlands, feeding into the Nine Mile Run Watershed. These wetlands provide the basis for the fauna and flora in the Frick Woods Nature Reserve and you can read more about them here
On Earth Day, 1991, the woods were rededicated as the Frick Woods Nature Reserve. Few, very few cities have a forest preserve such as this within their boundaries and we should be proud to have one. The Frick Park Environmental Center oversees the activities within the woods and hopefully a new facility will be built soon to better serve our needs.