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Wild @ Work

One of the few green spaces in downtown is Houston's oldest park, Sam Houston Park. This six-acre park is tucked in between a major freeway, two large exit ramps and several skyscrapers. The park contains historic structures operated by The Heritage Society. Sam Houston Park seemed the ideal home for many wildlife habitat projects with approximately 500,000 visitors each year. In light of the tremendous educational opportunity, the Environmental Institute of Houston received a conservation education grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, with Enron as the matching donor to begin the conservation.

Several wildlife habitat projects were designed with the assistance of Enron employee volunteers, the Environmental Institute of Houston, and a variety of federal, state, and local agencies and conservation organizations. Two native wildflower gardens, a native wetland garden, bat house, and two purple martin houses have been completed, along with a unique opportunity to use existing chimneys in the historic structures for chimney swift nesting.

Education aspects of the project include several training sessions with The Heritage Society docents and, for Enron employees, a series of "Wild@Work-Brown Bag Lunch" presentations on butterfly gardening, dragonflies, introduction to bird watching, advanced bird watching, and butterflies of Texas. Lunch-time "field trips" to the Park for dragonfly identification and bird watching are also available.







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