Check the library’s online calendar for details on special events, kids programs, and story times.   All the libraries have a children’s area with couches, chairs and a small rug for snuggling up to read books together.   Some branches also feature educational computer games.

www.aclib.us

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this park demonstrates the evolution of Florida farming from the 1850s to the mid-1940s-through three generations of the Dudley family.  An authentic working farm, the homestead consists of eighteen buildings, including the family farmhouse with original furnishings, an 1880s kitchen outbuilding, a general store and post office, and a functional cane syrup complex.  Park staff in period clothing perform daily chores, raising crops, and tending to livestock.  The farm features seasonal cane grindings, corn shuckings, and heritage varieties of livestock and plants.  Deer, wild turkeys, gopher tortoises, and bluebirds are still seen in the fields.  The park has a visitor center, picnic area, and nature trail.


www.floridastateparks.org/DudleyFarm
www.friendsofdudleyfarm.org

In a cooperative project with the Alachua Astronomy club, artist Elizabeth Indianos created monuments to represent the planets of our solar system.   Each of the ten, fourteen foot tall concrete monoliths is covered with tactile and visual information including: scientific facts, symbols and poetry.   The linear path of monoliths stretches along 8th Avenue, spaced in ratios of the actual distances between the planets on a scale of 4 billion to 1.


www.floridastars.org/solarwalk/solarwalk.html
www.gvlculturalaffairs.org/website/services/APPT/APPT_projects.html

Saturdays 10:00AM - 2:00PM and Sundays 12:00PM - 4:00PM
All Ages
$5 per person. Children under 12 are free.

The Historic Haile Homestead is unique in the Nation for its "Talking Walls."  For a reason lost to time, the Haile family wrote on the walls of their home - over 12,500 words in almost every room and closet!   Come visit us this weekend and see this gem of history, frozen in time - let the walls speak to you of joys and sorrows of more than a century ago.

www.hailehomestead.org

Kids matinee every Saturday of every month 3:00PM
Check the website for specific show information
All ages
Adults: $5   /   Seniors and children 4-12: $4  /   Children 3 and under: FREE

The Kika Silva Pla Planetarium seats 60 guests beneath a 34 ft Spitz dome, and is equipped with not one, but two, state of the art planetarium projectors.  The planetarium offers a variety of shows for the public, for school groups and private groups, and two shows especially for children.  Check the website for updated schedule and show information.


anita.courtot@sfcollege.edu
www.sfcollege.edu/planetarium

Kiwanis Safety City is a partnership between Gainesville Fire Rescue and the Kiwanis Club of Gainesville.  It is a 2 acre facility with a opening pavillion, fire station/ city hall, and a bike building.  We offer fire safety, 9-1-1 calling information, bike and pedistrian safety, passenger safety, and electrical safety.  The facility is open to all members of the community and member groups.

Hours: By appointment; Monday through Saturday.

This site was the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the author of many major literary works, including The Yearling, which received the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the novels South Moon Under, and Golden Apples, and her memoir, Cross Creek.  She was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters. Rangers in 1930's period attire will share her stories and farm life with you.  Remember to wander through the citrus grove and see the newly restored tenant house, or wander the paths deeper into the woods.

www.floridastateparks.org/marjoriekinnanrawlings

Saturdays 9:00AM - 4:30 PM
All Ages
FREE

Living History Days: Step back in a time when the roosters’ crow and the rising sun, not an alarm clock, welcomed a new day!   The Living History Farm comes to life with staff interpreting day-to-day life on a rural Florida farm.   Sample biscuits, fresh butter and a slice of life from 1870!   The heritage breed farm animals are fed twice daily around 9:00 am and 3:00 pm. FREE.

The Living History Farm is open to the public from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Tuesday through Saturday.
Morningside’s Living History Farm is a ten-acre re-creation of a single-family rural holding in the year 1870.  The Farm centers on the McCarroll’s, an Alachua County Irish immigrant family who built the oldest of the structures: Hogan’s Cabin.  The farm includes the 1840’s cabin, 1900’s board and batten kitchen, 1880’s twin-crib barn, Half-Moon one-room school house, reproduction out-buildings, heirloom garden and field crop areas and live heritage breed farm animals.  You can step into the life of an 1870’s family during special events and programs.


www.natureoperations.org

NEW! The zoo is open from 9-2 and families are welcome to stroll around the zoo at their leisure without a tour guide as was the previous policy.

Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo is home to over 75 different species of animals and over 200 individuals.   Some family favorites are the Bald Eagles, White-throated Capuchin monkeys, Sika Deer, Galapagos tortoises, Matschie's Tree Kangaroo, Asian small-clawed otters and African Grey parrots.   These species and many other mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians are on display in a naturally wooded environment.   The 3/4 mile trail through the wooded environment is lined with sawdust and is stroller and/or wheelchair accessible.

www.sfcollege.edu/zoo

Located directly behind the Museum, the park is a joint effort of the Matheson Museum and the City of Gainesville.   The park is an outdoor museum in the heart of the city.   A Walk Through History, a 12-panel local history exhibition, lines the walkways that meander through the Park; the area?s natural history is interpreted in native plant clusters and a formal Southern garden.   Also as a neighborhood and community space, the park offers quiet benches along Sweetwater Branch Creek, the city's original eastern boundary, and a children's playground.

The Department of Physics Lobby Exhibits opened in December 2002. The science exhibits include a T-Rex Hologram, Parabolic Dishes, a Large Plasma Ball, a Giant Guitar String, the Anti-Gravity Mirror, and a “Real-Image” Object display that changes objects periodically, the Spectra exhibit and the Chaotic Pendulum.


Click here for more information

Nestled in a small wooded area near Homosassa, the ruins of the Yulee Sugar Mill are one of Florida's most evocative historic settings.  Hewn from native limestone. the mill has been partially restored.  It currently consists of a large chimney with an extending structure about 40 feet long that houses the boiler.  Beside the mill's remains are parts of the grinding machinery.  Visitors can tour the ruins at their own pace with the help of a concrete path and interpretive plaques.  The site also offers picnic facilities.


www.crystalriverstateparks.org/Yulee.html