ASHLAND — The collection of lines, triangles and half-circles rising above the dirt at a children's museum here will become the new home for thousands of native seedlings whose presence will help teach local kids about environmental stewardship.

A new geodesic dome outside of ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum is the latest outside classroom for a regional ecology education program that focuses on using native plants to restore damaged habitat in ponds and along streams.

Built largely by volunteers Saturday, the 44-foot "Tree Nursery Dome" will become the hub of the Full Circle Schools Restoration Program in which school groups grow trees to help revegetate damaged wetlands and riparian zones.

The program, run by the Ashland-based Lomakatsi Recreation Project, has been teaching area students about native plants and revegetation efforts for a decade. It includes a companion curriculum taught in 10 classrooms scattered around Jackson County.

The new nursery represents the single best and most public addition to the Full Circle program.

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"This is definitely the culmination of our effort to upgrade what we started many years ago," said Aron Nauth, who runs Lomakatsi's five native-plant nurseries used in the program.

"This is a more public space and more accessible than the other school nurseries," Nauth said. "It's definitely something people can walk through and see. It's also a chance to be part of ScienceWorks equation as well."

The dome's design also imitates the structure of a carbon atom, at no great coincidence to Paul Kay, a wetland educator and ScienceWorks volunteer who helped design and build the nursery.

"We'll be taking carbon dioxide and turning it into plants," Kay says.

"This will be like half a carbon atom, but a big half."

The big atom gets its big introduction to the community on perhaps the biggest day for ecological thinking in the country — Earth Day.

The first of about 2,000 plants from 45 different species will be potted Saturday by members of the public commemorating the 37th annual Earth Day, a worldwide annual celebration of the environment since 1970.

The dome has a 22-foot radius and is formed by steel fastened to concrete footings and a gravel floor. It has no plumbing or electricity.

Kay says he envisions adding a system to use solar power to reclaim surface runoff to irrigate the seedlings.

"It's the design where we want to go with a self-sustaining place to grow the trees," says Chris Wallace Hostetler, ScienceWorks' executive director.

The dome construction was much like playing with an Erector Set, Kay says. First, the top's skeleton was formed, then the dome grew downward until the entire 2,000 pound structure was completed and bolted to the footings.

The dome was built largely with contributions and partially funded from the $80,000 Hinkle Charitable Foundation grant that helped Lomakatsi launch the Full Circle program two years ago, said Jude Wait, Lomakatsi's development director.

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com.