Wildlife Arts

Arts-based nature education in Cambridge

Green Cambridge’s Wildlife Arts program honors and nurtures children’s affinity for nature through art-making, storytelling, species explorations, and festivities. Our place-based program strengthens the connection between Cambridge’s young people and their city.

We work in developmentally appropriate ways that allow kids and youth not just to learn facts, but to follow their own paths of curiosity, creativity, and environmental awareness.

Teenagers are the illustrators of our wildlife trading cards that feature creatures, trees, and plants in our urban ecosystem.

We introduce families to citizen science opportunities through our City Nature Art Challenge and local City Nature Challenge wildlife observation events.

We invite Cambridge folks of all generations to participate in our outdoor art workshops and annual summer nature festival. We love puppets and pageants! Whenever possible, we invite all of Cambridge to march with our giant puppets and animal costumes in the October Honk! parade, the children’s parade at Fresh Pond Day, and the city’s River Festival.

Let’s explore and celebrate Cambridge’s biodiversity in community with one another.

See our upcoming events.

a white person in a green ranger hat and uniform holding a banner with an image of a row of children carrying an oversized monarch caterpillar puppet with black white and yellow stripes. the other end of the banner is held by a brown skinned person.
two child sized hands hold out an olive green wool caterpillar model with white eyespots.the child is wearing a red and cornflower blue superhero costume.
three girls with black handmade facemasks  creating red winged blackbird bird costumes
woman with long hair and a purple-blue salwar khameez holding two oversized yellow butterfly puppet wings with black dots, outdoors in a park

The Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge

Co-sponsored by Green Cambridge and Cambridge Local First, the Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge (CCNAC) aims to bring awareness to biodiversity in Cambridge by engaging children to create art depicting the species of wildlife in our city. Children choose their subjects from the list of wild animals, plants, fungi, and other organisms that have been observed and identified by both citizen scientists and professional scientists on iNaturalist (iNaturalist.org). iNaturalist is a partner in the global City Nature Challenge, a citizen science "bio blitz" that happens annually in late April/early May.

The Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge has broadened the path to engagement with environmental science and knowledge of local habitat.
— Prof. Colleen Hitchcock, Brandeis University

Fly, Buzz, & Hop! Festival

Each summer, join the Fly, Buzz, & Hop! Festival for a free day of art- making, music, storytelling, and a parade.

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