Close To Home Outings

Beginning in April, Bay Area residents can take part in a yearlong series of monthly outings and lectures to learn about the ecology of the East Bay, including its geology, native plants and wildlife, watershed dynamics, hiking trails, and native people. Co-sponsored by Bay Nature and the Oakland Museum of California, Close to Home: Exploring Nature’s Treasures in the East Bay (www.close-to-home.org) introduces participants to some of the area’s most interesting and beautiful places, including the wetlands around the Oakland Estuary, the inner Coast Range foothills east of Mount Diablo, and the 2,000-year-old Ohlone village site at Coyote Hills Regional Park. For more information, contact Cindy Spring at (510) 655-6658. One of the first outings will be to the Forces That Shape the Bay exhibit opening in early summer at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. This permanent outdoor exhibit will feature interactive landscapes that illustrate the giant sculpting tools of nature—water, plate tectonics, and weather. For more information, call (510) 642-5134 or visit www.lawrencehallofscience.org.