By Gail Radley
After your hike through the
Lyonia Preserve, step into the refreshing coolness of the
Environmental Learning Center, which opened in October 2009. The learning center, which occupies 4,000 square feet of the
Deltona Regional Library complex, is dedicated to educating the public about Volusia County’s various ecosystems.
Most prominent is the exhibition room. Chances are you’ll find school or day camp groups excitedly lifting flaps and pushing buttons as they explore the many hands-on displays. Scrub habitat, of course, is featured, along with its popular resident, the Florida scrub jay, but the other
Volusia County environments are not neglected. One wall is dedicated to showing how water connects all the habitats. Probably most popular with children is the 3-D manatee that seems to be swimming right out of the wall.
A Florida black bear (stuffed) guards the entryway to the Lyonia Gallery, a changing hallway display of photographs on loan from the
Southeast Museum of Photography. The displays are related to environmental land use, local history and regional culture. On my visit, it was an entertaining tour of rural Florida, contemporary photos of roadside signs, businesses, and byways that appear unchanged since the 1930s.
Various
special programs — summer camps as well as educational programs for children and adults — make use of the classrooms in the back. In this case, classroom does not equal rows of desks and a chalkboard. Think laboratory plus artists’ den, packed with all sorts of intriguing environmental artifacts. An environmental specialist leads these many of these programs. Modest fees will save you a spot for the special programs, but the visiting the Environmental Learning Center is free of charge!
Head in the other direction and you’re in the gift shop, a small but well-stocked area where you might pick up art and nature projects for the kids, jewelry, fine teas and greeting cards or a souvenir of your visit.
By now you’ll be hungry so step into the next area, the Bagel King Café. Yes, you could have made that a breakfast stop before your hike, but the café also offers great sandwiches on a variety of utterly delicious homemade breads, tantalizing desserts, and various drinks, so maybe a before and after visit is the best way to go. The café, as well as the Environmental Learning Center, Lyonia Gallery, and the gift shop and café are all open seven days a week.
On the far side of the café, a hallway connects to the Deltona Public Library — but that’s another story!