This is your classroom...

Columbus State University's 1,600-acre Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center, nestled in a bend of the Chattahoochee River, offers two nature trails that allow visitors to view native flora and fauna in a hardwood wetlands habitat. The learning center is a hands-on interpretive facility that focuses on the natural and cultural history of the region. Live and mounted animals are on display, including turtles, snakes, birds, frogs, spiders, fish and an alligator. Beyond Oxbow Meadows, staffers take their lessons on the road to educate schoolchildren about the environment. The center also loans educational materials to assist K-12 teachers with lessons about the environment.

• Admission $1.00 per person (proceeds support our animals and education programs)

The Treetop Trail

The TreeTop Trail is temporarily closed for engineering upgrades. These upgrades will be completed once property issues have been resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience.

With the celebration of Oxbow Meadows' 10th anniversary in 2005, CSU ushered in a new era with the opening of a forest canopy trail that is among the nation's most unique. The 192-feet long, 35-feet high Treetop Trail walkway provides a bird’s-eye look at wetlands and an up-close view of animal and plant life in the forest canopy.

About 100 similar structures exist worldwide, but Oxbow Meadows’ Treetop Trail is the first of its kind built in the United States and one of just three such structures accessible to the public. The aluminum walkway features suspension-type trail segments attached to two stable tree platforms and a tower. The platforms attach to the trees with a patented tree-friendly design; no metal penetrates the bark and the platform attachments allow for tree movement and growth.

Oxbow Meadows is an outreach program of Columbus State University operated in association with Columbus Water Works.