Day & Night: New exhibit explores a forest around the clock

The latest exhibit at Four Rivers Environmental Education Center brings the forest indoors, allowing visitors to see how a woodland transforms between day and night. 

The Day & Night Exhibition will be on display from Wednesday, Nov. 4, to Sunday, Jan. 3. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays to Sundays. Admission to Four Rivers and all Forest Preserve visitor centers is always free.

The goal of the exhibit is to allow people to have a better understanding of the forests that dot our landscape and how the diurnal and nocturnal activities in our woodlands are complementary and support the life living there, said Jerome Gabriel, the facility supervisor at Four Rivers Environmental Education Center. 

"People can go out and experience the aesthetics and peacefulness of a forest and the beauty of it, but this will help people see what might be living there," Gabriel said. 

The exhibit is spread across two rooms at Four Rivers, with one room representing a forest in the daytime and another representing a forest at night, Gabriel said. The focal point in each room will be a large replica oak tree to help illustrate life in the forest with and without daylight. One room will be bright and airy while the other will be kept dark with blackout curtains and is intended to be explored with flashlights.

"The exhibit gives you the opportunity to actually interact with some of those things you don't get to see in the forest because they are hiding," Gabriel said. 

Four Rivers is accredited by the National Inclusion Project and strives to provide welcoming and accessible experiences for everyone, and that includes this latest exhibit. Gabriel said all the exhibit's interactive elements stand no higher than 44 inches tall so they are accessible to all.

"All the doors that open, the panels that slide, the buttons you push to turn lights on are at 44 inches so everyone can use them," he said. 

The idea for the exhibition originated from a previous exhibit, Gabriel said. In 2024, Four Rivers hosted an art exhibit showcasing stunning photos of savannas and old-growth forests by photographer Miles Lowry. At that time, Four Rivers staff created a companion exhibit featuring a replica oak tree. This latest exhibit is an extension of that effort.

For the Day & Night exhibit, both replica trees as well as all of the additional components were created by Four Rivers staff. Collectively, they have spent hundreds of hours preparing the exhibit, with everyone's strengths complementing each other's, Gabriel said.

Information presented in the exhibit goes beyond teaching visitors about life in the forest. There are also takeaways people can put into action at home. One example is exhibit elements showcasing how different types of outdoor lighting affect not only wildlife but how well we can see around our homes at night. By pushing buttons to turn on lights in different displays, visitors may be surprised at how the different types of lighting impact both their feeling of safety at home as well as how effectively pewe coexist with nocturnal creatures. 

"Hopefully people reconsider how they light their homes, both for safety and for the health of wildlife," Gabriel said.

The Day & Night Exhibition is made possible through The Nature Foundation of Will County with a gift from Pembina Pipeline Corporation.

Complementary programs

Four Rivers will host a variety of interpretive programs throughout the duration of the exhibit:

• Day & Night: Early Bird Twilight Trek: 5:45 to 7:15 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7. All ages. Registration required.
• Day & Night: Twilight Trek: 4 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12. All ages. Registration required.
• Homeschool Day at Four Rivers: Day & Night: 10 to 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 12. Ages 5 to 10. Registration required.
• Homeschool Day at Four Rivers: Diurnal & Nocturnal: 10 to 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 12. Ages 11 to 18. Registration required.
• Day & Night: Breakfast with the Birds: 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 15. Ages 8 or older. Registration required.
• Little Explorers: Day & Night: 10 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16. Ages 3 to 5. Registration required.
• Day & Night: Breakfast with the Birds: 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 27. Ages 8 or older. Registration required. 

These programs are intended to allow visitors to expand on what they learned through the exhibit. 

"It makes sense for us to be able to connect what people are seeing indoors (at the exhibit) to what they get to experience outside," Gabriel said of the complementary programming.