The Ohio State University Wetlands Research Park
The Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetlands Research Park contains Ohio State’s wetlands research facility. The grounds are open to the public daily from dawn to dusk. Our experimental wetlands can be viewed from the Sandefur Observation Pavilion with additional viewing opportunities of natural areas along the Olentangy Greenways Trail and paved paths throughout the site. If you are interested in logging and identifying species you find at the Wetlands, please consider adding them to our iNaturalist project page.
The Wetlands are located at 352 W Dodridge St, Columbus, OH 43202
For more information, click here.
Columbus Metroparks
The Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks include 19 outstanding natural area parks with more than 230 miles of trails and over 27,700 acres of land in seven Central Ohio counties. For more information on the different parks and directions to get to them, click here to visit their website.
The Metroparks have so much to offer. Here are a few examples of different parks:
Visit Battelle Darby Creek for one of the only locations in Ohio where you can view bison. They also have an interactive and educational nature center with an indoor stream ecosystem.
Highbanks offers a scenic 100-foot shale bluff and lots of streams and ravines around the 1200-acre park along with trails for hiking, biking, and areas to kayak or canoe as well!
Three Creeks metropark is where Alum, Big Walnut, and Blacklick creeks join together. It is a great site for bird watching with a over 100 different species being seen in the past. You can also get lucky and see some charismatic mammals such as the beavers and minks that live in the area.
Prairie Oaks park has almost 500 acres of prairies and grasslands that have been restored using native seeds. It surrounds the Big Darby Stat and National Scenic River and many small lakes.
Whetstone Park of Roses
Whetstone Park of Roses is a 13-acre public garden space that is compromised of an arboretum and 5 different large rose gardens that each have their own theme. It is one of the United States’ largest rose gardens, and with over 12,000 different specimens it is definitely a beautiful springtime destination.
The Scioto Mile
The Scioto Mile known as “Columbus’ Downtown Riverside Destination” is astoundingly over 175 acres of park found along the Scioto river in downtown Columbus. It is extremely accessible to people in the area and contains more than just green space and park land. They have public art, walking and biking trails, and even a fountain that kids can play in (weather permitting).
The Chadwick Arboretum & Learning Gardens
Chadwick Arboretum is a 60+ acre reserve found on OSU’s Columbus campus where there is a extremely wide collection of diverse plants for education and research but is also open to the public for environmental enrichment. They also have a virtual tour of the learning gardens found on their website.
Schiller Park
Schiller Park is the city’s second oldest park established in 1867. It is over 20 acres and has a lot to do and see around the area such as flower gardens, green spaces, picnic areas, trails, a pond, and much more.