From global warming and renewable energy to environmental cleanup, Denver is emerging as one of the premier places in the nation for “green” learning. Not only is the city dedicated to sustainable development and ecologically friendly practices, but Denver also offers two national research centers that have tours and exhibits about the Earth’s climate and renewable energy, and a world-class museum of nature and science. Nearby, it’s possible to tour an environmental disaster area that is now being transformed into the largest urban wildlife refuge in the country.
Travel through time in the Prehistoric Journey exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. A series of murals depict the Denver area over 300 million years of time and explain how climate changes altered the landscape and the creatures that roam it. Visitors can watch Allosaurus and Stegosaurus do battle, then wander prehistoric habitats and examine ancient plants.
Photo courtesy: Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a great place to start a “green” education. Located northwest of Denver at the base of the Rocky Mountains, NCAR is dedicated to studying the Earth’s atmosphere from the ocean floor to the sun’s core. This is also one of the most important research centers in America studying climate change, pollution and severe storms and the effects these can have on mankind.
A free museum is open seven days a week, offering more than two dozen interactive exhibits that explain weather phenomena and atmospheric science.
Renewable Energy
Located 12 miles west of Denver, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is the nation’s primary laboratory for research and development of renewable energy. NREL’s mission is to help our nation discover and use renewable resources of energy to power our homes, businesses and cars.
The impressive Visitors Center tells the story of the important research that is taking place at this laboratory through a series of exhibits on renewable energy.
The building itself is an exhibit on passive solar energy.
Visitors can take a self-guided tour through the interactive exhibit hall and learn about energy from the sun, wind, biomass and other sources. Here, you can find out how scientists capture alternative energy resources to produce electricity and also investigate the future of transportation in America using renewable energy. It’s possible to visit several outdoor exhibits for a demonstration of the sun’s power, as well as learn energy-conserving strategies for your home that can be implemented today.
Environmental Cleanup
Located just 11 miles northeast of downtown Denver, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge is currently undergoing a major environmental restoration program that is transforming it into one of the largest urban national wildlife refuges in the United States—a vast improvement over its previous title as one of the most polluted spots on earth.
Prior to World War II, the arsenal was farmland, but in 1942, the U.S. Army bought 30 square miles of land to establish Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a chemical weapons factory. After WWII, the army leased land to private companies that produced commercial pesticides. During the early Cold War of the 1950s the Army again produced chemical weapons here. There were few environmental laws before the 1960s and chemical production at the Arsenal resulted in contamination of soils and groundwater at the site.
The project has been called one of the largest environmental cleanups in history. In 1986, while investigating the extent of the pollution and ways to clean it up, biologists discovered the Arsenal was home to a large population of wintering bald eagles. The discovery of eagles made people take note of the extensive and healthy wildlife populations throughout the large buffer zone of the Arsenal.
While the industrial core of the site was contaminated, deer, prairie dogs, coyotes, and many species of hawks, owls and other birds thrived in the abandoned fields, grasslands and wood lots that had been protected from development for 40 years.
In 2004, 5,000 acres of land was transferred from the U.S. Army to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the area became a National Wildlife Refuge.
Today, it’s possible to take bus tours of the Arsenal on Wednesdays and Saturdays to learn about its environmental cleanup efforts and view wildlife. There are 10 miles of trails through the area.
Denver’s Climate has Changed Many Times
It’s fitting that Denver has become a tourism center for the study of global warming, because few areas on earth have experienced more dramatic climate changes than Denver. The area around the city has been a tropical rain forest, a flat desert, a redwood forest and was once buried under an inland sea. Rhinoceroses, giraffes and lions have lived in Denver, as did a wide variety of dinosaurs.
The amazing climate changes of the area come to life at the Ancient Colorado exhibit in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. A series of large murals depict the Denver area over 300 million years of time and explain how climate changes alter the landscape and the creatures that roam it. In the museum’s Prehistoric Journey exhibit, there is an impressive collection of dinosaur bones, many of which were found in the area. In addition, the Museum (the fourth largest museum of its kind in the nation) provides highly acclaimed traveling exhibitions, stunning IMAX films, 80 intricate dioramas, the world’s most advanced digital planetarium and groundbreaking scientific research projects.
Twelve miles west of the museum is Dinosaur Ridge. The bones of some of the largest dinosaurs, including the brontosaurus and the stegosaurs, were first discovered here in 1877. It’s possible to view dinosaur tracks that were made on a flat beach of an ancient inland sea, but are today at a 45-degree angle on the side of a mountain, visible proof of the dramatic effect that climate and geological changes can have on Earth.