Cambridge Wildlife Arts
Art and Nature Connections for Everyone
Wildlife Arts is a volunteer-led organization that nurtures children’s affinity for nature through art-making and storytelling that celebrates local species of plants and animals. But we’re not only for children and families!
Our place-based programs strengthen the connection between people of all ages, languages, and backgrounds with their local ecosystem and their city.
Our giant puppets and animal costumes of local wildlife are part of the annual Honk! parade between Davis, Square, Somerville and Harvard Square, Cambridge.
Join us to explore and celebrate city biodiversity in community with one another, through drawing, 3D art, fiber arts, puppet-making, and pageantry.
The Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge
Co-sponsored by Green Cambridge and Cambridge Local First, the Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge (CCNAC) aims to bring awareness to biodiversity in Cambridge by engaging children to create art depicting the species of wildlife in our city. Children choose their subjects from the list of wild animals, plants, fungi, and other organisms that have been observed and identified by both citizen scientists and professional scientists on iNaturalist (iNaturalist.org). iNaturalist is a partner in the global City Nature Challenge, a citizen science "bio blitz" that happens annually in late April/early May.
“The Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge has broadened the path to engagement with environmental science and knowledge of local habitat.”
To See and Do at Home
Our History
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In 2018 Wildlife Arts became a program of Green Cambridge and held our Fly, Buzz, and Hop! Festival at Magazine Beach before Mass Audubon and the Nature Center were there.
2018 was also extra special because we were able to include in the children’s parade at Fresh Pond Day our new alewife giant puppet, our new butterflies (two Orange Sulphurs and a Spicebush Swallowtail) moths (a Bent-Line Carpet Moth and a Wavy-Lined Emerald Moth), a new pug moth caterpillar, and our new Cardinal puppet.
(Please be patient while we continue to build this part of our history!)
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We got our start at the 2012 Honk! Parade as a marching group.
(Please be patient while we continue to write this section of our history.)
Photos, 2018–2025
Our Second Fly, Buzz, and Hop! Festival, at Riverside Press Park
Cambridge Wildlife at the Honk! Parade in 2014
Cambridge Wildlife at a rainy Honk! Parade, 2017
Cambridge Wildlife at the Honk! Parade, 2013
Mask making with the Pathways for Family Success Program
An afternoon of puppetry and mask making at the Tobin Community School, 2016
Photos, 2012–2017
Cambridge Wildlife Arts at the Cambridge Science Festival, 2016
Make Your Own Wildlife Trading Card at Danehy Park Family Day, 2017
