With his son Harrison, 3, on his shoulders, Noah Zajac of Prospect leads friends on a hike Saturday at Jennings Environmental Education Center. The center hosted a self-guided tree-identifying walkabout Saturday as part of its COVID-safe program offering.

With many restrictions still in place on indoor gatherings and several outdoor events canceled, Jennings Environmental Education Center in Brady Township offers ways for residents with cabin fever to explore the great outdoors safely during the pandemic.

Last summer, the state park began offering self-guided tours as an alternative for those who want to enjoy nature while state regulations closed guided tours.

“With some of the changes to our ability to do programs, but also with people's various levels of comfort with in-person programs, we wanted to have some offerings for folks,” program coordinator Miranda Crotsley said.

In the four self-guided tour programming events, Crotsley said, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. Jennings has hosted tours showcasing the park's 20-some acres of prairie, highlighting fall foliage in Jennings, celebrating New Year's, and now, helping visitors identify trees in the winter.

“We were really amazed with how popular, especially, the first one was in the summertime,” Crotsley said. “We had over 400 of our guides go out, either in the park with printed guides, or we emailed them to folks. A lot of people really responded to that.”

That excitement hasn't gone away either. For the Winter Tree ID self tours, the park has already sent out about 60 guides.

The new program is aimed at teaching visitors ways to identify trees by looking at features that are present in winter. The park has more than 150 species of trees and shrubs, which are handy to help teach this program. Without leaves, it can be difficult to identify a tree, Crotsley said, but “it's not something insurmountable.”

“It covers mostly deciduous trees. We have a few evergreens in the park, but the idea is to get folks to be able to identify trees (that) we usually identify using leaves, by using different features,” Crotsley said. “It might be difficult to tell the difference between an oak branch and a musclewood branch or something like that, but when you look at other characteristics, it might make that tree stand out to give you a clue what that tree is.”

It's no less of a crowd-pleaser than the prairie walkabout last summer.

“I hope they continue (these events),” Kimberly Donavan of Ellwood City said. “They're so good. All of their programming is excellent.”

Donavan was at Jennings, along with members of a women's book club that attended the park event on Jan. 9, and the club was generally pleased with the self tour. Beth Gillian of Butler said it was the club's first in-person meeting in months.

Karen Bruch of Butler said the new format makes the park “really accessible,” and added that other attendees were respectful of social distancing on the trails. Patty Cudoc of Butler said the accessibility of the format also made learning about the park's nature easier.

“We took the test at the end. We learned so much,” she said. “We got 100%.”

These were all goals of the park when it launched the self-guided tour programming, something Crotsley said will continue for the foreseeable future because of guidance from the state. Although it can't host guided tours, Jennings is glad to share its natural bounty with residents.

Eagle staff writer Seb Foltz contributed to this report.