Community Calendar

Get ready to be amazed at our newest interactive exhibit! From the smallest bees to fluttering butterflies and beyond, this immersive experience brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life animatronic pollinators that reveal the secrets of nature’s hardest-working heroes. Explore the critical role these creatures play in sustaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that plants, flowers, and crops thrive. Join us to celebrate their incredible impact! Over 20 animatronic pollinators will be on display, including butterflies, beetles, bees, and the very important Poweshiek Skipperling, which is the star of one of the Zoo's most successful conservation programs.

Get ready to be amazed at our newest interactive exhibit! From the smallest bees to fluttering butterflies and beyond, this immersive experience brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life animatronic pollinators that reveal the secrets of nature’s hardest-working heroes. Explore the critical role these creatures play in sustaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that plants, flowers, and crops thrive. Join us to celebrate their incredible impact! Over 20 animatronic pollinators will be on display, including butterflies, beetles, bees, and the very important Poweshiek Skipperling, which is the star of one of the Zoo's most successful conservation programs.

Get ready to be amazed at our newest interactive exhibit! From the smallest bees to fluttering butterflies and beyond, this immersive experience brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life animatronic pollinators that reveal the secrets of nature’s hardest-working heroes. Explore the critical role these creatures play in sustaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that plants, flowers, and crops thrive. Join us to celebrate their incredible impact! Over 20 animatronic pollinators will be on display, including butterflies, beetles, bees, and the very important Poweshiek Skipperling, which is the star of one of the Zoo's most successful conservation programs.

Fly on over to see your favorite orange butterfly with Tinker Bell, Mirabel, Iridessa, Anna & Elsa. Immerse yourself in the world of pollinators and learn your role in conservation to help them flourish, flit, and flutter for years to come.

Brower's Flowers and Matty Sunshine Sound Healing invite you to enjoy the unique experience of building your own beautiful bouquet of seasonal blooms before relaxing during a soothing sound bath for this Sound Baths & Bouquets event.

BUILD-A-BOUQUET: Before your sound bath, Marissa, owner of Brower’s Flowers, will help you choose your stems to build a stunning seasonal arrangement in a small vase and ensure the longest vase life for your blooms. 

SOUND BATH: A sound bath is a deeply immersive, full-body listening experience during which various instruments produce specific sounds, frequencies, and vibrations to shift brainwaves into a relaxed state. In this state, a person's innate healing abilities can work more effectively to bring them back into vibrational alignment while balancing the mind, body, and spirit. During this sound bath in the quaint, cozy, and rustic barn at Brower’s Flowers, Matty Makowski, a certified Sound Healing Practitioner and owner of Matty Sunshine Sound Healing, plays 8 crystal singing bowls, a Heng gong, tuning forks, Tibetan singing bowls, and Tingsha cymbals. The sounds produced by these instruments invite you into a deeper state of consciousness, serve as an opportunity to unplug from external stimuli, and promote self-inquiry/discovery. This sound bath lasts approximately 60 minutes. Following the sound bath, you are invited to enjoy light refreshments and ground yourself by casually strolling through a peaceful and stunning garden area.

LOCATION: Brower’s Flowers - 9320 Ramsdell Dr., Rockford, MI 49341

ADMISSION: $50 per person (includes Build-A-Bouquet experience + 60-minute sound bath + light refreshments)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
3:00 PM - Guests arrive and set up their sound bath stations in the barn
3:10 PM - Build-a-Bouquet with Marissa (outside barn, weather permitting)
3:50 PM - Guests transition to barn
4:00 PM - Sound bath begins
5:00 PM - Sound Bath concludes / refreshments / garden stroll

Get ready to be amazed at our newest interactive exhibit! From the smallest bees to fluttering butterflies and beyond, this immersive experience brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life animatronic pollinators that reveal the secrets of nature’s hardest-working heroes. Explore the critical role these creatures play in sustaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that plants, flowers, and crops thrive. Join us to celebrate their incredible impact! Over 20 animatronic pollinators will be on display, including butterflies, beetles, bees, and the very important Poweshiek Skipperling, which is the star of one of the Zoo's most successful conservation programs.

Get ready to be amazed at our newest interactive exhibit! From the smallest bees to fluttering butterflies and beyond, this immersive experience brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life animatronic pollinators that reveal the secrets of nature’s hardest-working heroes. Explore the critical role these creatures play in sustaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that plants, flowers, and crops thrive. Join us to celebrate their incredible impact! Over 20 animatronic pollinators will be on display, including butterflies, beetles, bees, and the very important Poweshiek Skipperling, which is the star of one of the Zoo's most successful conservation programs.

Get ready to be amazed at our newest interactive exhibit! From the smallest bees to fluttering butterflies and beyond, this immersive experience brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life animatronic pollinators that reveal the secrets of nature’s hardest-working heroes. Explore the critical role these creatures play in sustaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that plants, flowers, and crops thrive. Join us to celebrate their incredible impact! Over 20 animatronic pollinators will be on display, including butterflies, beetles, bees, and the very important Poweshiek Skipperling, which is the star of one of the Zoo's most successful conservation programs.

Get ready to be amazed at our newest interactive exhibit! From the smallest bees to fluttering butterflies and beyond, this immersive experience brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life animatronic pollinators that reveal the secrets of nature’s hardest-working heroes. Explore the critical role these creatures play in sustaining ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that plants, flowers, and crops thrive. Join us to celebrate their incredible impact! Over 20 animatronic pollinators will be on display, including butterflies, beetles, bees, and the very important Poweshiek Skipperling, which is the star of one of the Zoo's most successful conservation programs.

Traditional education often prioritizes grades and memorization, neglecting skills vital for real-world problem-solving. Join Van Andel Institute for Education’s Director and Education Officer Terra Tarango to explore the power of inquiry-based instruction in fostering curiosity, creativity and critical thinking — essential traits for the next generation of innovators. Discover how VAI’s K-12 education group is helping teachers bridge this critical gap.