Environmental Studies Center - Mobile, AL - learning in nature

The Environmental Studies Center in Mobile, Alabama is located at 6101 Girby Road. The center which is designed to give resource assistance and learning opportunities in environmental education and science is an experimental facility for teaching. The program is designed to strengthen and support the instruction given in the classroom and enhance the achievements of students by adding non-traditional teaching methods to the experience they receive.

There were four goals identified as a guide for the staff to implement and develop the program. The program wants to give people an understanding of the interrelationships that living things have with each other and the natural environment. Assisting the welfare of living things by the promotion of managing natural resources wisely and sound stewardship and to increase the awareness of environmental problems and learn to make better decisions to lead to resolving the issue. The final goal of the Environmental Studies Center is to give direct experience and observation of the outdoors to enrich the curriculum of the schools.

The center was designed to give an experience that cannot be obtained from the local school system and offers more than five hundred acres of woodlands for students to learn in. There are opportunities for the general public, students and teachers to experience the environment and its interrelationships first hand at the center. There are swamps, a twenty acre lake, carnivorous plant bogs and forests to allow students a wide array of learning opportunities that give them hands on experience with nature and learning to appreciate it.

The Environmental Studies Center has a classroom library with a number of preserved specimens found in southern Alabama, a salt water aquarium, library and an auditorium. There are also a number of programs at the facility designed to meet the needs of students all the way from preschool to specialties.

The staff of the center runs programs for those from preschool to the last year of high school. The programs can be tailored to work with any of the Alabama Science Course of Study for all grade levels. Plants and animals native to the state of Alabama are introduced to students in every program. There are reservations required for programs some of which may have limitations on space.

The cost of admission to the facility is $2 each person or $75 minimum for a group from the Mo. Co. public school system. Those attending out of county, parochial or private schools pay a rate of $3.50 each person or a minimum of $85 for each group. The center is open Monday through Friday from eight in the morning until four thirty in the afternoon during which time the facilities welcomes the general public. Donations in the amount of $2 each person are appreciated by the facility.

Environmental Studies Center in Mobile, Alabama offers a number of educational opportunities, teacher resources and hands on opportunities to assist in gaining a true respect for nature. It is an ideal location to take the entire family or take your class on an educational field trip.