Toltec Mounds
Located just west of Scott, Ark., a short 15-minute drive from Little Rock, Toltec Mounds State Park is home to American Indian mounds built more than 1,000 years ago. The park features a museum with exhibits in addition to short, flat trails throughout the mound areas.
Audubon Nature Center in Little Rock
The Audubon Nature Center in Little Rock covers 400+ acres and is home to a wide range of habitats, from ultra-rare nepheline syenite glades with cacti to a cypress-lined oxbow lake. Other habitats include: willow oak flats, post oak savannah, and upland white oak forest. Multiple trails wind through and connect these habitats. Visitors taking a guided tour by Audubon staff can learn dozens of facts about wildlife, plants, water quality, and other environmental issues.
Game and Fish Nature Centers
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has multiple Nature and Education Centers around the state. These centers are great places to learn about Arkansas wildlife, with most having large aquariums of native fish and other animals.
Petit Jean State Park
This park, located near Morrilton, is one of the most popular in the state. It offers numerous trails and great scenery, and is an interesting place to learn about several periods of Arkansas history. The park is home to multiple buildings built by the Civilian Conservation Corp, a cave featuring Native American pictographs, and supposedly the grave of an early French explorer.
Louisiana Purchase State Park
This state park, located near Brinkley (where the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was recently rediscovered), marks the location where the survey of the entire Louisiana Purchase began. The park features a boardwalk with educational signage about the surrounding swamp ecosystem and the history of the area.
Clinton Presidential Library
Located in the Rivermarket district of downtown Little Rock, the Clinton Presidential Library is a large, interesting-looking building that houses the communications and other archives from the Clinton Presidency. The building has earned LEED certification and has numerous "green," environmentally friendly features. The center also brings in exhibits on non-Clinton related subjects.
