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About the Sibley Nature Center

The Sibley Nature Center is first and foremost a place for people to walk and to observe our native landscape. To learn what you might see along the trail, please check out our Virtual Trails, listed on the left side of this page, below the index to the sections of the website. All school groups planning on visiting are required to view the latest photoessay and any previous one of the same month as their visit.

Read about the people who make Sibley a happening place!

Hours of Operation

The Sibley Nature Center is open to the public 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Special programming occurs on Saturday; check the Calendar for upcoming events and activities.

Facilities

The Sibley Nature Center is a 5,200 square foot building contains four major rooms.

In the Llano Estacado Room are displays and activities about the 8 major habitats of the region.

In the 70 seat auditorium several cooperative groups (the Gem and Mineral Society, the Midland Archaeological Society, the Llano Estacado chapter of the Master Naturalists, and the Midland Naturalists) provide programs throughout the year. The staff of the Sibley Nature Center also use it for Photo of the Sibley Nature Centerpart of a group’s visit. Other groups may rent it for $50 for a half day, and $75 for a full day.

In the collections room are a plethora of resources:

  • a 1,000+ volume natural history library,
  • the Midland Archaeological Society’s 400 volume library,
  • the Frances Williams Memorial Bird Library,
  • an insect collection,
  • a bone collection,
  • the Midland County Herbarium,
  • the beginnings of a Hispanic cultural library,
  • the beginnings of a West Texas Historical library,
  • vertical files of magazine and scholarly journal articles,
  • a collection of West Texas county soil maps, and
  • mounted specimens.

The entry room contains a gift shop (focusing on books about West Texas), displays about the trails, displays on local and regional civic groups that celebrate the out of doors, and rotating displays.

Programs

Since 1986 over 5,500 programs to over 350,000 people have been presented to groups throughout the southern Llano Estacado and beyond (from Lajitas to Ozona to Abilene to Amarillo to Carlsbad, New Mexico.) Call 432.684.6827 to schedule a program.

All programs are fee-based, with a dollar a person charge. This charge can be negotiated or waived on a case to case basis. Donations of books with subjects specific to the region, educational materials and supplies, and scientific equipment are also often considered in lieu of monetary payment.


Photo of the start of the nature trailWe teach people about our home, the Llano Estacado region of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. We encourage people to become knowledgeable about the region’s plants, animals, and history. Knowledge of one’s home leads to the love of one’s home – and love of one’s home is the most basic building block of patriotism.

To learn in depth about the teaching style you will encounter at the Sibley Nature Center, please read this essay (On becoming llaneros) (PDF document) by Shelley Wright produced for a master's psychology course.

The following essays offer a sampling of what occurs at the Center.

The job description of a naturalist-interpreter at a nature center is to serve as a facilitator for people to learn about their surrounding natural world. A duty of the naturalist-interpreter is to provide factual information.

Nature centers are places for people to enjoy the out-of-doors. Every walk along the trail at the Sibley Nature Center will be different.

A guided visit to the Sibley Nature Center is unpredictable. As a group moves along the trail, opportunities will sometimes arise that take a visit down an unplanned direction.

School Programs

The following 5th grade TEKS objectives provide the framework for our programs.

  • 5.9A Comparing adaptive characteristics of species
  • 5.9B Analyzing adaptive characteristics that result in an organism’s unique niche
  • 5.9C Predicting adaptive characteristics for survival
  • 5.10A Identifying traits inherited from parents (physical and behavioral)
  • 5.10B Identifying learned traits that result from the influence of the environment

Index of Animal & Plant Behavior & Adaptation Essays
The essays on the Sibley Nature Center Website are chock-full of ways that our local animals behave, and of how plants and animals have adapted to our harsh environment. Students can use the index to understand the major concepts of behavior and adaptation.

This does not mean that we only give programs to 5th graders! The Llano Estacado has a very harsh environment. We endure temperatures ranging from 116F to –20F, and sometimes have straight-line winds over 70 miles an hour as well as tornadoes. In some years we receive less than 6 inches of rain, while once every 40 years we receive over 30 inches of rain. The stories of adaptation by plants, animals, and humans to these incredible extremes are utterly fascinating.

In our historical programs we discuss four major groups of people and their adaptations to the rugged environment.

  • The Jumano, Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa Indians
  • The Conquistador, Cibolero, and Comanchero visitors from northern Mexico and northern New Mexico
  • The ranchers and farmers that settled the region from the 1880s to the 1920s
  • The oilfield society of the late 1920s to 1960.

Our programming always include history and ecology. Our focus for the years 2006 to 2014 is as follows:

To learn about each of these habitats at any time, each habitat home page linked above contains a list of Essays on the website which are relevant to that habitat. Some of these essays also have a photoessay in the Recommended Daytrips section of the website.

Oversight of the Sibley Nature Center is the responsibility of the Center's Board of Directors, a volunteer group. The current listing of board members is available here.

Sibley Nature Center
1307 E. Wadley, Midland, Texas 79705
phone 432.684.6827
email bwilliams@sibleynaturecenter.org