Page 160 - South Mississippi Living - June, 2018

LEISURE get outdoors
MARINE EDUCATION
The newly opened Marine Education Center (MEC) was conceived, designed and built using the simple concept that “people learn about outdoors by being outdoors.” The center, located at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory Cedar Point Teaching Site in Ocean Springs, replaces the J.L. Scott Marine Education Center on Point Cadet in Biloxi that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Though it took more than 10 years to replace the facility, it was time well-spent, said Chris Snyder, director of the MEC.
“Having lost the original building to a hurricane, we felt like we had an obligation to be responsible for its existence,” he said.
With no MEC building for a number of years, classes and camps still continued at the GCRL’s
East Beach campus. The staff moved their teaching and learning to outdoors and in tents. “We used to work inside with some outdoor components. We lost that, but didn’t stop working. We found our whole dynamic changed to working outdoors,” Snyder said.
Students and guests can now experience a mix of public exhibits, classrooms, laboratories, meeting spaces and administrative areas while also being immersed in outdoor learning and field experiences through a system of trails and boardwalks. The MEC compound is built along two ridges of property
that are divided by a bay head that feeds into Davis Bayou. The layout is comprised of several structures nestled among the woods rather than one large building.
The Courtyard ties two of the buildings together. With its crushed limestone surface and cement wall seating, it serves as a large outdoor classroom. The
long and narrow main building that snakes back into the woods is where the public will be welcomed. It also houses the MEC offices, a couple of conference rooms and — at the rear — a first-of-its-kind Citizens Science Lab.
“We are going to work with adults who are primarily interested in citizen science. We have the capacity in here to do a lot of basic lab work and equipment that will get into the genetic make-up of animals and plants we find on the property,” said Jessica Kastler, Ph.D., coordinator of program development at MEC.
The second building by the Courtyard is the conference center designed to seat 125 people with a prep kitchen, smaller meeting room and a screened- in learning area.
A path from the Courtyard goes to Davis Bayou and a pier where groups board the Miss
Peetsy B for bayou tours. Up the hill
from the pier is a large screened
pavilion overlooking Davis Bayou that is another outdoor classroom/ conference space.
“We moved a lot of square footage from an indoor building
to outdoors. Instead of
walking around in
a building, you are walking between buildings outdoors.
CHRIS SNYDER, That director of the made
Marine Education the Center.
160 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • June 2018
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