League of Women Voters of Seminole County History
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES CENTER
Touching Thousands of Lives: The Environmental Studies Center
Seminole County’s first Environmental Studies Center was a circa-1926 cottage that once served as Oviedo High School’s lunch room. School district science director Bettie Palmer saw it one day as she was leaving a meeting about starting an environmental sciences program. The old building was slated for destruction.
“She figuratively stood in front of the bulldozer,” long-time Seminole League member Pat Burkett said.
The county envisioned a center for environmental education in its long-range recreation plan, but the vision didn’t include money to start or support it. Big Tree East, part of Spring Hammock Preserve, seemed an ideal location, and state Department of Education grant money was available through the school district. But at the time, intragovernmental cooperation was a novelty.
“Bettie (Palmer) and I thought, ‘Let’s get the county and the school board together,’” Ms. Burkett said. In 1976, the county and school district approved an agreement to develop 242 acres at Big Tree East into Soldier’s Creek county park. The school district paid to move the cottage and Ms. Palmer and Ms. Burkett won grants from the U.S. Department of Interior and the Florida Department of Education to start the Environmental Studies Center. “We thought we should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize that year,” Ms. Burkett said.
The center officially opened in 1977. The old lunch room served as an office and classroom, where the tiny staff, including Pat Burkett, taught students about native wildlife, the water cycle and the benefits of fire. The following summer, the Department of Interior chose 40 Seminole County teens from 300 applicants to work 40 hours a week at minimum wage ($2.65) building trails, boardwalks and a pavilion on the property.
“One of the things that made this a perfect place for an environmental studies center was the fact that as you walked from the railroad tracks downhill, you went through all these different habitats,” Ms. Burkett said. “It starts with oak palmetto scrub, then you got to a pine forest, then came the power lines. Then you got to a mixed hardwood hammock with magnolias and basswood and sweet gum. Then you got to the hydric hammock. Then cypress swamp, then the lake. This is Spring Hammock, so all through it these little sulphur springs come up.”
Among the 40 youth were three Boy Scouts – Mike Drury, Scott Arnett and Gary Fuhrman – who had camped in Big Tree. Ms. Burkett sent them off with some crime scene tape to map out a trail that would include every habitat in the park. Thousands of Seminole County fifth-graders would come to know the route as the Mud Walk. Depending on the season, students and their escorts could find themselves waist-deep in the wetland’s watery muck.
“It’s to experience a wetland. It wasn’t just to get dirty. It was so they could experience the odors, the smell, this is what a wetland is like, so that they would appreciate wetlands. Kids go out and they touch carpet, they touch concrete, grass, but what else? Nothing,” Ms. Burkett said.
The old cabin was supposed to last three years. Instead, it stood until 2004, when the county built a new, 6,500-square foot center. It is named for Pat Burkett. She retired that year, but continued as volunteer and head cheerleader.
Despite the impact it has had on thousands of Seminole County students, ensuring the Environmental Studies Center’s survival has always demanded the League’s vigilance. Money trouble forced it to close for the summer of 1992 and cut staff and programs. In 2003, a Longwood car dealership sought to expand onto four-and-a-half acres in Spring Hammock Preserve in a land swap that would give the county about three acres on the east side of S.R. 419. League member Nancy Bowers called the county’s support “a betrayal of the public’s trust”, and the membership packed zoning committee meetings in protest. Even so, the county traded off the fragile Spring Hammock land.
During the Great Recession, the Seminole County School District faced multi-million annual shortfalls. It cut the Center’s already-tight $130,000 budget by $27,000 in 2008 and slashed an additional $97,000 in 2009.
In budgets that forced school closings, teacher layoffs and other mortifying sacrifices, the outcry over closing the Environmental Studies Center was among the loudest.
“I got more than a hundred e-mails from all over the country,” long-time Seminole League member Dede Schaffner, who was a school board member at the time, said.
In the end, public passion, along with donations and a bailout from Seminole County, spared the Environmental Studies Center. The online petition Seminole League member Pat Southward organized to help save it in 2010 netted about 2,400 signatures. In addition to leaving their names, supporters offered their memories of the Mud Walk.
“I listen to mothers and fathers of our children talking about how they remember doing the Mud Walk when they were in school,” a parent wrote. “How cool is something that all different generations of our community have in common.”
The Environmental Studies Center is a Seminole County Public Schools facility. Located in Soldiers Creek Park, part of Spring Hammock Preserve, a partnership between the School Board and Seminole County Government creates a unity that benefits school programs and the general community. The Center is best known for the traditional 5th grade Mud Walk; a unique field trip that allows students to explore and investigate habitats that are part of the Lake Jessup wetlands and St. Johns River watershed. The Natural History Museum and surrounding pavilions provide outdoor classrooms for scheduled field trips during the school week. Students also take part in standards-based lessons while on their field trips. New in 2013, is a 3rd grade field trip that takes students on an exploration of the surrounding habitats. Included in these field trips is a professional development component for teachers. Soldiers Creek Park trails and boardwalks wind through five natural habitats to a spectacular view of Lake Jessup. The park is open daily to the public from sunrise and sunset.