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SF’s New 12,000sqft Kid-Designed Nature Exploration Area Opens Nov. 1

New Bayview open space at Heron’s Head Park with logs, stumps, and boulders helps kids unplug and connect with the outdoors
By - posted 11/1/2021 No Comment

City officials, children, and the Bayview-Hunters Point community will celebrate the opening of a 12,000-square foot Nature Exploration Area at Heron’s Head Park on November 1, 2021 with a ribbon cutting, speaking program, and fun designed to ignite creativity and imagination.

The Nature Exploration Area was designed with input from local children and is the largest of its kind in San Francisco.

Ribbon Cutting & Community Celebration  
Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 5:00 p.m.
Heron’s Head Park
32 Jennings St. San Francisco, CA 94124

RSVP

Through all natural materials, locally sourced materials like boulders and hollow trees, it allows kids to negotiate risk through climbing and balancing, while encouraging dramatic play and connection with nature.

The park is art of the India Basin project that is transforming dilapidated industrial spaces and underperforming existing parks into a unified network of inspirational open spaces.

The project is a  collaboration between the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and its partners: the Port of San Francisco; Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco Children and Nature, Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, and KABOOM!

 

Park Features

  • Boulders and locally sourced trees invite kids to jump, climb, and balance.
  • A combination of fixed natural elements and loose parts provide ever-changing challenges shaped and designed by kids.
  • Wacky posts of different sizes line the create-with-nature zone and provide opportunities to string hammocks or slack lines, hang bird houses, or create nature forts.
  • The path winds to the highest point of the site where logs form a circular gathering space and space for reflection. Surrounded by native vegetation, this is a great spot for quiet contemplation, to use binoculars to spot birds, and for taking in views of the bay.
  • Native plants selected to promote exploration with the 5 senses through color, texture and smell also create habitat for local wildlife.
  • Taller native vegetation and natural elements create opportunities to fully immerse in nature and invite users to explore.
  • Shortcuts created with boulders and logs offer alternate routes to and from the overlook.