A variety of reptiles will get a new home when the expanded and renovated Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center opens this weekend.

The $2.38 million renovation and addition includes new gardens, classrooms, an auditorium and a canopy walk, as well as indoor and outdoor animal habitats for the center’s snakes, turtles and alligators.

Director Lisa Randolph said the expanded 8,000-square foot facility should be an improvement over the old center, while still keeping to Oxbow’s mission -- educating visitors about conserving, protecting and restoring the environment.

“We had everything piled up in one room,” Randolph said. “Now, we think of ourselves as an upscale nature center.”

If you visit the new center this weekend, here are some features to check out:

New indoor animal enclosures: The center focuses on reptiles and amphibians native to Georgia, including corn snakes, copperheads, and rattlesnakes. You can watch the Oxbow staff place a group of rat snakes -- nicknamed “The Rat Pack” -- in their indoor enclosure at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.

All of the tanks are set up to look like a natural habitat or a place that the animal might be found. For example, the corn snake’s habitat looks like the inside of an old barn or shed, because snakes tend to hide out in places like that, Randolph said. They also placed the enclosures for the copperhead and the corn snake near each other, since people usually confuse the two snakes, she said. The new set-up makes it easier to teach visitors about the animals and the environment where they live, Randolph said.

“It’s not a showroom, it’s a tool,” she said.

Turtle pond and alligator enclosure: The new center also has outdoor enclosures for turtles and alligators. The turtle pond out front will house the turtles after they grow too big for their indoor enclosure. The alligator pond will house alligators that can no longer live in the wild because they’ve been fed by people and have become, “nuisance alligators,” Randolph said, meaning they’ve become too comfortable with humans. She said they hope to train the gators to know when it’s feeding time by the ringing of a bell.

New gardens: Several gardens have been added to the property. The turtle enclosure includes a bog garden, with carnivorous plants like Venus flytraps and pitcher plants. The center’s sensory garden incorporates plants that engage the five senses -- like lemongrass, which has a distinctive lemony smell. The pollinator garden contains plants and flowers that attract natural pollinators and are native to the Southeast, like Black-eyed Susans, Randolph said. The garden is also part of the Seeds of Wonder project, which teaches elementary students from local schools about nature and the environment by having them cultivate plants from seedlings, then transplanting the plants to the garden.

Canopy walk: Described as a “walkway above the trees,” this feature allows visitors a bird’s eye view of the wetlands and trees around Oxbow. Randolph said the canopy walk should be open for Saturday’s grand opening and that free tickets for guided tours will be available to visitors 12 and older on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Natural history center, classrooms and auditorium: The center’s old building has been converted into a natural history center that will feature changing displays. Randolph said they have one planned on botanical artworks and another on fossils.

The renovated center also includes two classrooms that can be used for school groups, as well as Columbus State University classes, and an 85-seat auditorium.

More programs and features could come in the future. Randolph said she hoped to eventually incorporate more technology into the center, by adding features accessible for Ipods and Ipads and interacting more on Facebook. Kids are often familiar with technology, she said, but don’t always know much about nature and the environment, leading to “nature deficit disorder.” The term was coined by Richard Louv in his book, “Last Child in the Woods,” which alleges that children who spend less time outdoors disconnect from nature.

“There is some value to being out of doors and having unstructured play,” she said, adding. “The kids are into technology, so we add the nature.”