CHANGE MY LOCATION
Local
California News
Multimedia News
Baltimore County's Irvine Nature Center expanding educational programs
SEE HOW THIS STORY DEVELOPED
Related Topics: Baltimore County
)
Summer fellows Erica Glass, 16, of Baltimore, left, and Robert Flowers, 17, of Baltimore, second from left, teach India Hamilton, 9, of Baltimore City, second from right, and Destiny Campbell, 9, of Baltimore City, right, about different leaf species on Monday during a news conference to announce the federal funding of the Irvine Nature Center's urban education outreach program in Owings Mills.
Baltimore County (Map, News) - Erica Glass, 16, directed a group of younger students to gently rub a crayon across the white paper, revealing the veins and outline of the leaf underneath.
“Just because it’s green doesn’t mean it’s the same species,” she told the second- through seventh-graders visiting from Samuel F.B. Morse Recreation Center during a lesson on biodiversity.
Glass, a rising senior at Dunbar High School, is spending six weeks this summer as a summer fellow at the Irvine Nature Center in Baltimore County, teaching other Baltimore City students about the outdoors.
“We actually get to expose them to things they don’t get to see in school,” Glass said.
This Summer Fellowship Program, which employs 10 high school students, is among the dozens of educational programs offered at the center, which recently expanded its facility to Owings Mills.
U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin and U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, both D-Md., presented the Irvine center with a check for $328,300 Monday to help promote urban education programs similar to the summer fellows.
The federal funding helps provide initiatives for “children who otherwise wouldn’t get an opportunity to see what the environment is all about,” said Cardin, standing in front of the center’s new 17,200-square-foot, environmentally friendly building.
Started in 1975 on the St. Timothy’s School campus in Stevenson, the Irvine center once offered educational lessons from a rented barn. Now, the center is moving from Stevenson to this 116-acre location on Garrison Forest Road, where officials will celebrate the grand opening during the weekend of Sept. 12.
“This is an enormous opportunity for us,” said Peggy O’Neill, interim executive director for the center.
The new building has a geothermal heating system, a pervious paving parking lot and will have a green roof. There are also four classrooms with enough space to quadruple the number of school trips the center can accommodate, O’Neill said.
“This is a damn good investment in taxpayer dollars,” William Balfour, president of the Irvine board of trustees, said of the federal funding presented Monday.
“This money will be spent on our mission, and we are absolutely determined to do it.”
smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com
