NEW!  View conceptual drawings of the Phase 1 plan. 

BSI and its partners are developing a facility in Big Sky, MT that will serve as a technologically advanced hub for collection, integration, visualization and communication of scientific understanding for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The facility, located on BSI’s land just north of Ophir School, will function as a research lab, K16 learning center and public science center.

The Yellowstone Science and Outreach Center

MSU’s Yellowstone Science and Outreach Center will advance the science upon which the stewardship of all that is special about Yellowstone depends. BSI is developing an innovative center dedicated to investigating and communicating the science of Yellowstone. BSI received a generous donation of land in a spectacular location, adjacent to Ophir School in Big Sky, MT and in close proximity to pristine environments.

Researchers at MSU are developing and implementing cutting-edge strategies to take the pulse of the Yellowstone ecosystem, measuring everything from wolf populations to the fate of pollutants in our blue-ribbon trout streams. The Yellowstone Science and Outreach Center concept builds upon an ongoing dialog among researchers, educators, and community members.

The hub of the science center will be a high performance building-landscape system that demonstrates the application of our most advanced ideas of how to build structures that let us live and work in ways that minimize our footprint on the environment, both at the site and beyond.  As a tool for learning the field station will not only be home to teams of researchers, educators, and students from around the country but it will also function to broaden the understanding of anyone who seeks to know more about how Yellowstone ‘works’ as a dynamic, evolving ecosystem.

Who benefits?

• BSI works to ensure that the most robust science is available to those making the critical decisions about the fate of our wild landscapes in the face of diverse and ubiquitous challenges.
• The science of the environment gains from a dedicated facility that integrates our understanding of the dynamics of an ecosystem in which wild and rapidly urbanizing landscapes intermingle.
• Learners of all ages have the opportunity to engage in a scientific enterprise that encompasses all stages of scientific inquiry from defining the problem, to analyzing trends and consequences, to taking actions to ensure that Yellowstone and other large nature reserves continue to function as a source of inspiration for generations to come.