INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. — Located at the foot of the Wabasso Causeway Bridge on the Indian River Lagoon, you'll find the 1,664-acre lagoon-island Environmental Learning Center.
"It's a pretty special place," Barbara Schlitt Ford, the executive director at the center. "It's a little slice of heaven here, all native Florida."
WATCH BELOW: Environmental Learning Center inspiring the next generation of environmental stewards
From the moment you step on Wasbasso Island, you will start to relax in this serene setting.
"It is one of the most biodiverse estuaries in all of North America, so about 4,000 different species, over about 2,000 species of plants and about 2,000 species of animals," Schlitt Ford said. "It is just a bevy of biodiversity here."
The environmentally conscious residents who started the center in the 1980s knew that in order to protect paradise, they would need to get younger generations involved.
"Your mission is working beautifully because you've already seen people who visit here and their youth and then they went on to do that as a career," Kate Wentzel said to Schlitt Ford.
"They remember going to field trips when they were young and in school, then maybe they came to camp, became an intern, and a lot of people have gone on to environmental fields, or at least they go on to be more environmentally responsible adults and more connected to nature," Schlitt Ford said.
It's a full circle moment for Schlitt Ford, a former science teacher who brought her students to the center.
"We're kind of missing a little bit of the outdoor time, hands-on nature time that some of us got naturally in our youth and technology becomes a bigger part of our lives," Schlitt Ford said. "We just spend less time in the outdoors. (At the center), we're about more green time less screen time."
The center won an award for best eco-tour and best place for kids on the Treasure Coast.
It's buzzing with activity in the summer with hundreds of campers.
The chance for children to get outside in nature helps drive home lessons learned in the classroom.
"For most of them, this is the first time they have ever canoed, and for many of them it's the first time they have ever been on the Indian River Lagoon," Schlitt Ford said.
Campers get up close and personal with some of the marine life before heading indoors to the "living lagoon," where campers see a variety of marine life.
The center's "touch tank" allows youngsters to get up close and personal with seahorses and sea stars.
The Environmental Learning Center also works with nonprofits like the Treasure Coast Girls Coalition.
"Working with middle school girls to expose them to STEAM careers, we want to make sure that horizons are expanded and nature is the great common ground," Schlitt Ford said.
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