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PROPERTY DESCRIPTION

Glacier Creek Preserve is part of University of Nebraska at Omaha's extended campus. The 525-acre preserve is situated northwest of Omaha in the rolling hills of eastern Nebraska. Embedded within the Preserve is the 140-acre Allwine Prairie Tract, a restored tallgrass prairie created in 1970. Large enough to sustain a diversity of functioning plant and animal communities, Glacier Creek Preserve incorporates an entire sub-watershed. This feature protects the preserve against effects of surrounding land use, thus reinforcing its sustainability into the foreseeable future as a unique metropolitan area preserve available for education, research, and appreciation of our natural heritage.

The Barn at Glacier Creek is the preserve's environmental education and research facility, providing classroom space, a field lab, restrooms, and a multi-functional space that can accommodate over 50 people. It also houses the preserve office. The Barn, a 1900's era historic building, was donated and moved from its original location on the Roy Johnson family farm to Glacier Creek Preserve in 2012. It includes geothermal heating and cooling, is fully ADA accessible, and has full wireless and port access to the internet.

"UNO's preserves are places to experience remnants of eastern Nebraska's historic prairie, savanna, and woodland habitats."

Over the years, the preserve has become increasingly more important to the diverse needs of education and research activities in support of UNO’s community engagement mission. It’s a place where groups and schools throughout the region can visit and reconnect with their natural prairie heritage. It’s also a preserve that is open to visitors who can walk while surrounded by our historic tallgrass prairie landscape.

Today, the preserve hosts an entire suite of native prairie and woodland plants, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and countless insect and other invertebrate species that can be observed throughout the preserve, numbers that approximate the diversity of local native prairies. Prairie life and the diversity of water and land features that characterize the preserve together provide a regional resource for education and research for a variety of disciplines—an intersection between science and humanities under an umbrella of conservation.