Oxbow Adventure – Oxbow Regional Park 

Gresham, OR

Learning Landscapes worked closely with Metro staff to design engaging areas at Oxbow Regional Park for kids to engage with nature. The site is rich with interesting plants and animals as well as an active history. But, often these stories are lost on park visitors. The Oxbow Adventure concept that Learning Landscapes developed provides base camps where kids can choose an adventure to go on. At each base camp is a nature themed play area that provides hands on play as well as a sneak peak into the natural history and resource at the park.

Kids find the base camps and choose an adventure that excites them, putting them in charge of their experience. Their adventure includes a map to a location on site, investigation suggestions, and further information. The tacking adventure brings young ones to the waters edge to look for evidence of animal life on the sandy shore, it provides example tracks and tells a bit about the animals that they may find. They can hunt for tracks as they enjoy the Sandy River and explore the park. The adventures offered at any time could change depending on the season, site changes, or new stories that arise. For example there were nesting eagles in the park last year!

Visitors can also enjoy nature in a more controlled environment in one of the nature themed play areas; a sand and water flood play zone and an animal hide and seek area. Both of these play areas introduce kids to themes and ideas they might find throughout the rest of the site. Keep an eye out in the next few years for this project to come alive on site.