Some Girl Scouts painted a mural, and others built a bee display and bird boxes, but everyone rallied to honor a fellow troop member who died of leukemia several years ago.

The work was for the Caitlin Dunbar Nature Center at Camp Illchester in Ellicott City, an environmental studies-based, hands-on facility that will serve the Girl Scouts in Central Maryland. The opening ceremony was held Sunday afternoon.

The center will be interactive, meaning visitors will get a chance to get up close and personal with animals like diamondback terrapins, a corn snake, an eastern chain king snake and an emperor scorpion.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for members of the community to experience the passions of the girls to get the Nature Center up and running,” said Sandy Deming, whose 10-year-old daughter Sara helped paint the center’s mural.

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The mural includes three ecological areas: the forest, ocean/beach and field/prairie. Endangered animals such as the Maryland black bear and the red-cockaded woodpecker are featured, she said. Twelve girls in Demings’ troop worked many hours, doing everything from research to painting.

Caitlin Dunbar was a 15-year-old Girl Scout who died suddenly of leukemia. The Ellicott City center opened on what would have been her 19th birthday, parents said.

Don Correll, of Eldersburg in Carroll County, gave the center more than 100 exotic shells from the coast of Guam, where he once visited.

“We think it’ll give the Scouts a chance to see a lot of varieties they may never have seen all in one place,” said Correll, whose granddaughter, Amanda Montz, 7, helped by making touch boxes.

The small boxes are covered by cloth and contain items such as deer antlers and snake skin, and are used in activities in which visitors guess what they are touching without looking.

This is the second center opened in the area for Girl Scouts. The first one opened about three years ago at Camp Conowingo in Cecil County, said volunteer Lisa Miles, whose daughter Jessica contributed to the Dunbar center by helping build bluebird houses.

jkowalkowski@baltimoreexaminer.com