Environmental Education

Architect Selma Goker Wilson gets giddy every time it pours at her Sarasota home. She watches with excitement as her labor of love — a rain garden she and her husband built themselves — is doing an effective job at diverting the heavy flow of water coming off their roof into a downspout and onto flowers and plants.“Working on it was very therapeutic, learning about all the plants, but seeing the water come out, we come out every time it rains, like ooh, how's it doing?” said Goker Wilson.She and husband Christopher Wilson, an architecture historian at Ringling College, find joy in adjusting stones and moving plants to increase the amount of stormwater that filters down into their yards instead of flowing onto their concrete street out front. They say it’s about being good stewards to the environment.

As blooms of blue-green algae begin to form in Southwest and Central Florida and red tide season approaches, environmental educators are preparing to inform tourists and locals alike about harmful algae blooms.

New World Warblers are often referred to as the “butterflies of the bird world” – a designation because of their small size and diverse colors and patterns. A few warblers nest in south Florida, but several -- including the Palm Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Black-and-white Warbler are common winter residents. These three have distinctive plumage patterns and behaviors, making them a great trio to begin exploring the diversity of warblers that pass through on migration. Beware, however: watching warblers as they flit among the branches of tall trees in search of insects can be addictive – and lead to a temporary affliction commonly known among birders as “warbler neck”.

Les Stroud is a Canadian survival expert, filmmaker, author, and musician - best known as the creator of the TV series Survivorman. Stroud joins Gulf Coast Life to talk about the transition he’s found himself in, the projects he’s focusing on now, and the role music and songwriting have always played in his life.

Les Stroud is a Canadian survival expert, filmmaker, author, and musician - best known as the creator of the TV series Survivorman. Stroud joins Gulf Coast Life to talk about the transition he’s found himself in, the projects he’s focusing on now, and the role music and songwriting have always played in his life.

A species of great ape found in the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia can now be seen at the Naples Zoo. Zookeepers recently welcomed a family of four orangutans as part of the zoo’s conservation and education initiatives.

The theme of this year’s Bald Eagle nesting season is resilience, according to Audubon Florida’s EagleWatch Report. We discover how bald eagles are able to endure Florida’s ever-changing landscape and discuss our fascination with the iconic birds of prey.

Ahead of National Public Lands Day we explore the importance of public lands and the need for more comprehensive environmental and climate change education for students and the general public as well as research on the impacts of climate anxiety in a conversation with Jennifer Jones, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Environment and Society at the Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University and Heather-Skaza Acosta, Ph.D., interim Director of the Whitaker Center for STEM education at FGCU.