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The City of Berkeley’s Shorebird Park Nature Center is the first municipal strawbale building in the United States. It has a solar hot water radiant system to provide heating year-round in the cool marina climate, and a solar photovoltaic electrical system to power the aquariums, computers, lighting and other equipment. Our Straw Bale building is the Nature/Visitors Center and Office. Here you'll find displays on marine mammals and birds and a touch table for children. The building itself is a display on green building.
The Visitors' Center provides information to visitors concerning all areas of recreation and marine conservation and education. We do group tours which include watching a video on the process of building this building.
The classroom is where we hold workshops, trainings and teach classes. It now has a 200-gallon salt water aquarium which displays creatures that live in the San Francisco Bay, and fresh water ecosystem with a 200-gallon fresh water native lake fish tank. Mid-week, the classroom holds the school group presentations, teacher workshops, and Summer Marine Biology Classes.