Riverwoods Field Lab Is Highlands County's Best-Kept Secret

Highlands County is a wonderful place to study nature and ecology.

We have a very important project under way on the Kissimmee River, which, when completed, will restore an entire wetland ecosystem.

Most of our population is located within five miles around U.S. 27. However, drive just a few miles east or west of this busy highway and you will soon be out in the country of Florida's Heartland.

At Highlands County's eastern border, between Cornwell and Fort Basinger lies the Riverwoods Field Lab. Riverwoods is owned by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and managed in partnership with the Center for Environmental Studies (CES) at Florida Atlantic University.

The SFWMD has the important job of monitoring the Kissimmee River ecosystem as part of the world's largest restoration project, which is currently taking place.

In the 1960s, to protect the region from flooding, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) drained the historic 103 mile long meandering Kissimmee River into a 56-mile long, 300-feet wide, 30-feet deep drainage canal, the C-38. The idea at the time was to improve the drainage south to Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades and the Atlantic coastal populations.

Unfortunately, this channelization had a major negative impact on the ecosystem.

Large populations of wading birds left the drained floodplain, while bass fisheries crashed due to degraded water quality conditions. The good news is that the past 30 years has brought a new appreciation of our natural ecosystems.

Currently, SFWMD and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers are backfilling the middle third of the C-38 canal to restore the river's original meandering form. We have already seen a great improvement in the system with the return of populations of migratory birds, fish and native plants.

The Center for Environmental Studies team at Riverwoods offers a comprehensive education program for secondary students, teachers and adults to explore the Kissimmee River to learn about the world's largest river restoration project via pontoon boat or canoe.

We offer field-based workshops allowing educators from Highlands, Okeechobee, Palm Beach and surrounding counties to view the restored river, first hand. We teach them about the Kissimmee River Restoration Project, conduct diversity and abundance bird surveys, test water quality and identify native and exotic wetland plants. We provide a wealth of resources that can be used back in their classrooms.

We also offer Student Field Study workshops for secondary students from all over. We can host a maximum of 20 guests on the boat and at the Lab for one day or overnight workshops.

On July 11-12, we hosted the Environmental Science class from Palm Beach Community College. The PBCC class had an overnight workshop. On Friday, they learned about Lake Okeechobee's Best Management Practices established to protect the lake with the SFWMD's Gary Ritter, director of the Okeechobee Service Center.

On Friday evening, they arrived at Riverwoods and participated in our new night sky astronomy lessons. It was too cloudy to use the telescopes, but the students learned how to use celestial globes to identify constellations.

They also used spectroscopes to study artificial stars, similar to the way professional astronomers would study the spectrum of stars through their telescopes. The next day, the class boarded our Kissimmee Explorer pontoon boat to conduct the field activities on the river including water quality testing. Research illustrates that getting students into the environment is a highly effective way to teach science to all ages!

In May, we hosted a public event for residents and visitors featuring speakers from the Florida Bat Conservancy. They gave an educational lecture on native bats of Florida and brought live bats that people could actually look at up close. After their presentation, we took a night hike to the nearby Pearce Homestead. The bat scientists used bat detectors and laptops to pick up the ultra sonic signals of the bat's call and showed how the calls registered on the computer. Amazingly, they could tell what type of bat was making the call, and even what type of call it was, such as a mating call, or a social call.

The CES team offers public and school events at the Pearce Homestead. This spring, we hosted eighth grade students from Avon Park Middle School. The students spent the day exploring the site and conducted science, history and agricultural activities. They learned about Kissimmee River ecology, the history of Miss Edna's political career as Florida's third woman elected to our House of Representatives, and the P-4 cattle ranch that she ran as the One Woman Ranch. The Homestead is an excellent example of an early 1900s cattle ranch, with the original house, cemetery, barn, two room schoolhouse, and other buildings located on the grounds under a canopy of ancient oaks along the river.

Check out our Web site at http://riverwoods.ces.fau.edu or call 863/462-0025 to schedule a workshop or learn more about our growing environmental programs. Loisa Kerwin, our Director, has a view for the future and keeps expanding the programs offered at Riverwoods. So come out to explore Highlands County's best-kept secret. Riverwoods Field Lab is located on U.S. 98 in Cornwell, about 10 miles east of Lorida.