Canaveral National Seashore Offers Outdoor Learning for Adults
By Lisa D. Mickey
Everybody knows that national parks are great places to teach children about the natural world and to explore the park’s flora and fauna.
But Canaveral National Seashore also has served as an outdoor classroom for adult students in the Florida Master Naturalist Program. A class of 25 adult students plus the instructors in the University of Florida’s class taught through Marine Discovery Center, come to the park twice a year for a deeper understanding of Canaveral’s ecosystems.
The group is divided in half and rotates between sessions on scientific water testing of the Indian River Lagoon and a plant walk up Turtle Mound, led by certified arborist and local plant guru Ray Jarrett. These are more than just cursory discussions. Students have a chance to get their feet wet and to delve deeper into these topics.
The adult students learn about the variety of plants growing in the park, and specifically, on the historic midden underneath their feet on Turtle Mound, once home to indigenous people. They can smell the slightly offensive Simpson’s Stopper plant. They can see the fruit of wild citrus, wild papaya and tiny flowers of the Scorpiontail. They can observe how ocean winds have shaped Live Oak trees, buffeting and bending these stately old oaks over time as they have leaned into the harsh, salty environment in which they exist.
Students are guided in the use of scientific measuring instruments to sample waters from the adjacent estuary, examining water samples for salinity, pH, chlorophyl, nitrogen and phosphorus. Students learn how a healthy waterbody supports the plants and living organisms within it and when water-test results reveal an instability in the health of the lagoon, those measurements offer a better understanding of how organisms, such as seagrass and even oyster and clam habitats, may be adversely affected.
These students also leave the estuarine environment to visit the coastal shoreline of Canaveral. They walk the wrack line of the ocean – also called the sea’s “bathtub ring” – to learn how wind and tides deposit a variety of items onto the beach. Some of the items are organic and some of the items are human-made trash that has increasingly become more prevalent on shorelines, washing onto beaches with ocean tides.
Students learn how washed-in seaweed -- called sargassum -- drifts onto beaches from the center of the Atlantic Ocean and provides food for foraging shorebirds. Students can watch ruddy turnstones (birds) flip the dried wrack, looking for insects and crabs. They also learn how this sometimes “fragrant” wrack dries and blows into the dunes to help collect sand to stabilize dunes and encourage new growth of coastal vegetation.
Students in the Florida Master Naturalist Program come from throughout the state and sometimes from out of state. Many have moved here from other states and are trying to learn more about the coastal ecosystem of Central Florida where they now live. Some are using the class to become better interpreters as nature guides. Some are enrolled as county or municipal employees. Some are even early-career rangers in the National Park Service.
But one thing all of them have in common is the ability to take what they learn during a field trip to Canaveral National Seashore and apply it to personal knowledge and a greater understanding of the natural world around them. Whether they use what they learn in a formal setting or share it on easy walks with friends and loved ones, this hidden gem tucked between the Atlantic Ocean and Indian River Lagoon offers a valuable classroom for students of all ages, setting a stage of natural wonder, scientific exploration and human intrigue.
Lisa D. Mickey is a Florida Master Naturalist/Land Steward and instructor in the Florida Master Naturalist Program. She is past-president of Friends of Canaveral and currently serves as the board’s conservation chair.
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