Ecological Discovery Programs

To schedule a program or for more information, please call or email Rebecca Meegan.
Email: CPI_rebecca@hotmail.com, Phone: 850-681-6208

One Hour Presentations

• Exploring Your Public Lands – Slides and handouts to provide the audience with knowledge about the public lands in our area….where to go and what to do.
• A Day in the Life of a Biologist – Through a slide presentation, the audience will accompany a biologist as she studies the amphibians and reptiles of six ephemeral ponds.
• Endangered Species – Teaches the life history of endangered species in Florida (plants, mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles) and provides specific ways to help.

• Amphibians and Reptiles of a Nearby Wetland – Field trip to an ephemeral pond. Students will have the opportunity to dipnet for tadpoles, listen for frog calls, identify frogs and lizards living on the ponds edge.
• Backyard Biologist – Discover the animals living in urban areas.
• Project Wild Activities – Activities targeted to specific age groups teach ecological lessons about animals and their habitats.
• Benefits of Bats – Slide presentation about the bats in Florida and their habits and habitats. Also includes a bat box building exercise.
• A Naturalists Journal – Students will create a personal journal and learn how to take notes about their outdoor surroundings. Both an indoor and an outdoor experience.

• Art and Nature – Students will explore a local forest and/or wetland and learn to view their surroundings through the eyes of an artist. In partnership with Dale Johnson, a scientific illustrator with the Florida Museum of Natural History.
• Biologist for a Day – Be a biologist for the day and accompany 2 biologists as they research the amphibians and reptiles in the Apalachicola National Forest. Participants will learn different techniques for finding, catching, and studying the fauna.
• Friends in the Forest – Program will focus on the vertebrates of Florida’s forest and includes hiking, hands-on demonstrations, and a take-home project.

For more lecture presentations see also Slide and Lecture Presentations.

Ecological Adventure Trips
A big part of CPI's mission is to provide environmental education to the public to increase awareness and understanding of the importance of Coastal Plain ecology. We believe that if people get themselves immersed in wild, natural places, then they will be far better equipped to join in the fight to conserve Southeastern biodiversity. Not to mention, it's just plain fun and self-rewarding. Ryan and Rebecca will take up to 10 people per outing to various locations in North Florida. Trips currently offered include:

• Time Traveling on the Wacissa River: We’ll take you on a canoeing and snorkeling adventure down the wild Wacissa River for a full day. Learn spring ecology and travel back in time to an unspoiled place rich in archeological and paleontological history. Discover the remains of past Native American cultures and huge Ice Age animals and learn about the region’s paleoecology. Nothing will be taken from the river. This is a place where whispering winds and flickering sunlight interact with clear spring water gushing over wavy grass, clean sand and limestone. Trip begins at Goose Pasture on the Wacissa River and ends 5 miles later at Nutall Rise on the Aucilla River. Families welcome. Call or email Ryan for more specific info.
  
• Sinkholes of the Aucilla: Take a hike for a day along the wildest stretch of the Aucilla River where it flows underground for the first time only to resurface dozens more times along its string of cavernous sinkholes. We’ll count and explore as many sinks as we can find. Count on learning much about Karst geology and Florida natural history.
  Call or email Ryan Means for more specific info: 850-681-6208, rcmeans1@yahoo.com
  
• Many more trips in the making…