City Park is a lovely, diverse space, with manicured lawns, ballfields, playgrounds, picnic shelters, and shady pseudo-savanna, along with patches of bristly woods, mossy, tadpole-filled ponds, and soggy riverbank.

Designed by Professor Lon Drake, the SSOW serve a multitude of functions. The wetland’s system of channels and basins effectively clean the stormwater runoff from hundreds of houses in the Grant Wood Elementary School area. It is home to many species of plants and animals. It is a great place for children to wade, get muddy, see waterfowl, catch frogs, and enjoy themselves.

Uncovered by the Great Flood of 1993, the Fossil Gorge holds fossils of life on the Iowa sea floor from hundreds of millions of years ago. The fossils are just one attraction, however. The cracks, creeks, waterfalls, caves, and crevices in the limestone bedrock make for fantastic imaginary homes for small people. Mats of algae, cattail stalks, and slabs of bark become shelters, accoutrements, and tools for the little “Six Incher” tribes. Frogs, snakes, crayfish, and tadpoles are quarry for kids and "Six Inchers" alike.

Mature, beautiful hardwood forest along the Coralville Reservoir with miles of trails and lots of stuff to explore. Taproot Kids here have enjoyed building shelters, leaping the “ravine,” collecting oyster mushrooms, climbing trees, and skipping stones on the lake.

Sand Lake is a new park created at the site of an old sand quarry. A shallow, reed-circled lagoon, swimming with hungry bluegill, and surrounded by a group of high sand dunes makes for a wonderful spot to catch a fish, enjoy a campfire, and play in the sand.

A few hundred acres of forest, wetland, and prairie with miles of trails, Redbird Farm is home to many birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, and a great place to hike and explore. It is also fun to hunt for the clues of the land’s past lives as farm and prairie savanna.

A surprisingly diverse and wild bit of nature tucked between the Coralville Strip and the Finkbine Golf Course, this nature trail has been the site of several great Taproot trips. It consists of remnant wetland, prairie, and savanna ecosystems, along with planted pine woods and athletic fields. We’ve had some great sledding here, as well as animal and human tracking adventures. Wildlife tracks or animals spotted have included deer, turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, red foxes, owls, cooper’s hawks, and squirrels.