Ohio’s Parks & Preserves offer many excellent educational opportunities for homeschoolers and for parents seeking educational enrichment for their public school students. To locate parks and preserves near you, TrekOhio offers an on-line guide currently listing details of over 900 parks and preserves around the state. The guide is divided into five geographic zones that are listed in the tabs on the top of each of our pages.
In this article I’ll discuss resources for the academic areas of Read more ➜ Earth Science Resources for Homeschoolers in Ohio’s Parks & Preserves
Ohio’s Parks & Preserves offer many excellent educational opportunities for homeschoolers and for parents seeking educational enrichment for their public school students. To locate parks and preserves near you, TrekOhio offers an on-line guide currently listing details of over 900 parks and preserves around the state. The guide is divided into five geographic zones that are listed in the tabs on the top of each of our pages.
In this article I’ll discuss resources for the academic areas of Read more ➜ 
We recently visited Robinson Falls (aka "Corkscrew Falls") at Boch Hollow State Nature Preserve. The waterfall is located off-trail at the preserve, so we obtained a free permit from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to visit the falls. Along with the permit, they sent us a map showing the falls, where to park, directions, and preserve rules.
The ODNR-provided map directed us to a small pull-off from the road that holds a couple of cars. We located the trail-head across the 
We really enjoy hiking at Fort Hill, but until recently we've never hiked the Canby's Mountain Lover Trail. To access this trail, you have to wade across Baker Fork Creek. We thought that if we went toward the end of October the water might be low enough to wade across while wearing waterproof hiking boots, but we were wrong. The creek is too high for hiking boots. It's also too cold at this time of year to just wade in and get your feet wet. We ended up returning on November 7th, each of us packing 
Spring is a great time to see Ohio waterfalls. Many Ohio waterfalls dry up in the summer heat. But in spring, with melting snow, saturated ground, and rain showers, these waterfalls can be quite spectacular. Below is a list of some of the Ohio waterfalls we've visited categorized by geographic region.
Central Ohio
Hayden Falls (Franklin County) - an easily accessible waterfall in the city limits of Columbus
Honey Run Falls (Knox County) - a waterfall across from a park with hiking 
Trimmer Arch is a classic, round-topped arch, the best such specimen in Ohio. It's located in Ross County within the Paint Creek Lake Wildlife Area. The interior opening of the arch spans 14 ft. (4.6 m) and rises 8.6 ft (2.6 m). Trimmer arch formed within a narrow outcropping that extends into a U-shaped ravine bounded by two streams. The rock itself is Greenfield Dolomite, a type of sedimentary rock that forms horizontal bedding planes one atop another like a stack of pancakes. Due the the thinness 
Shale Hollow is Delaware County's newest park having just opened in December. It is named for a small canyon of 20 to 40 foot shale cliffs rising above a stream named Big Run.
We visited Shale Hollow a couple of times in the past month. The park consists of 188 acres encompassing a ravine, forest, and meadowland. A gravel roadway leads to a parking area next to a nature center. The nature center features a small exhibit explaining the natural history of the area including the 375 million 
Burton Wetlands is a 305 acre preserve in Geauga County whose terrain was shaped by glaciers during the most recent Ice Age. Most notably there are two glacial kettles in the preserve. A glacial kettle forms when a glacier calves over a land surface (that's when a huge chunk breaks off). As the glacier recedes and the calved ice melts, a lake takes its place. The plants living in and around the glacial kettles of Ohio would normally be found farther north in Canada. They are living remnants of Ohio's 
We'd been looking forward to a Saturday hike, but the weather forecast called for rain. What to do? Go hiking underground! We visited Ohio Caverns, a commercial cavern open year round offering guided underground tours. Just the thing for a rainy day.
Ohio Caverns is located in Logan County in the Bellefontaine Outlier. This hilly region of Ohio contains the highest point in Ohio. Just down the road from the cavern is Campbell Hill with an elevation of 1,549 feet above sea level.
The 
Ohio has some scenic wonders - the gorge valley at Old Man's Cave, rapids and waterfalls at Clifton Gorge, the Glacial Grooves at Kelley's Island. But how did it all come about? In this article I intend to cover half a billion years of geological history in 10 minutes or less and explain how Ohio became Ohio.
First of all, Ohio has no mountains. But next door in West Virginia is an ancient chain of mountains called the Appalachians that extends from Georgia to Maine. Half a 
Oak Openings Metro Park is a 4,000 acre metro park in Lucas county. It has over 30 miles of well-marked hiking trails over some of the state's most interesting and diverse terrain. It features many varieties of plants, and it is on the main path for seasonal bird migration. Oak openings also has sand dunes despite being miles from the nearest large body of water. How the sand dunes got there is an interesting story in itself.
The History and Habitat
Twenty one thousand years ago,