The first thing you experience when you enter the Irvine Nature Center is the exhibit hall. This includes a small museum, including live animals on display, and the Kids Korner, a hands-on area for younger kids.
The Kid's Korner is full of nature’s artifacts such as bones, shells, furs, tree slices, antlers, fossils, and much more. Exhibits cover areas such as stream and pond life, bird nests and eggs, animal tracks, the life of a tree, and endangered and extinct animals of Maryland. Animals to be found here include poison dart frogs from the Amazon, hissing cockroach from Mexico, boa constrictor from South America, and native species such as grey tree frog, yellow spotted salamander, and the corn snake.
There are additional exhibits in the classroom, which is accessible through the Nature Store. In here is a pair of bearded dragons, an aquarium with a diamondback terrapin and a painted turtle, and exhibits about bird adaptations, geology, and how insects protect themselves. The classroom is only open to the public when it is not otherwise in use.
There are more animals outside, including a broad-winged hawk, barred owl, and screech owl.
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