ISD 625-Saint Paul Public Schools

Lynette is involved with both programming and land management at Belwin Conservancy. She enjoys creating walks and talks that showcase the great work being done to restore native habitat for all the critters and plants. She also gets to be involved with the work that creates the habitat, which she loves. Each day holds something different for her. Some days she is working with her body on the land, some days she does reconnaissance for a program, some days she works with volunteers, and some days, nights or evenings she gets to lead a group to some amazing phenological event happening on Belwin property.

In the late 1960’s, Charles Bell and Lucy Winton Bell found themselves in a unique position to do something to help address the challenges of diminishing wild spaces, water pollution, and the lack of outdoor education for children. They had recently acquired 200 acres of ecologically diverse land in Afton, Minnesota and wanted to use it to counter these devastating trends.

In 1970, Lucy and Charlie signed an agreement with Saint Paul Public Schools that would dedicate their land to outdoor science education for children. They established the Belwin Foundation (a combination of their names, Bell and Winton) and donated 225 acres of their land to it. With the arrival of students in 1971, Belwin Outdoor Education Laboratory, now Belwin Outdoor Science, was born.

Over the years, this vision has brought over half a million children to Belwin Conservancy for outdoor science education and protected hundreds of acres in the St. Croix Valley from development.

Learn more here: https://belwin.org/