Sharing this news from the ever-active Sonoma County Regional Parks:

RAINDROP EXHIBIT, FAMILY HIKES AT SPRING LAKE’S ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOVERY CENTER

“Down the Drain: A Raindrop’s Journey from Cloud to Creek” opens today (Feb. 15) at the Environmental Discovery Center at Spring Lake Regional Park. This exhibit offers families a fun, hands-on introduction to the water cycle. Children can pretend to be a raindrop by climbing the “cloud stairs” and then crawling through a model of a storm drain. They can create rain-related artwork and check out healthy water habitats at a tide pool with touchable, live sea creatures and an aquarium with fish from Spring Lake. This exhibit focuses on Sonoma County watersheds, the effects of water pollution and the prevention of storm drain contamination. The exhibit runs through June 3.

The Environmental Discovery Center also hosts naturalist-led family hikes on the third Saturday of each month, and this Saturday’s hike is all about amphibians. EDC naturalists will lead two, one-hour walks into the park to view salamanders and newts. The hikes leave the Discovery Center at 1 and 3 p.m. After each hike, families can return to the Center to learn how to create amphibian habitats in their backyards. These will be easy to moderate hikes, with all ages welcome but strollers not recommended. Hikes are $5 per family. Hikers should wear warm clothes, good walking shoes and bring water. Heavy rain cancels.

Presented by Sonoma County Regional Parks and the Sonoma County Water Agency, the Environmental Discovery Center is at the Violetti Road entrance to Spring Lake Park in Santa Rosa and is open to the public noon-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. Admission is included in day-use parking.

For more information, call the Environmental Discovery Center at (707) 539-2865 or visit sonomacountyparks.org.