20th Annual EEAA Conference

The 20th Annual EEAA Conference was held January 31 – Feb 2 of 2008 at Camp Blue Lake in Andalusia located close to the beautiful Conecuh National Forest in South Alabama. There was a great round table meeting set up for Thursday morning and early afternoon. Great ideas were shared on how to better improve everyone’s Environmental Education Program across the state.

That evening after registration there was a frogless frog pond. It wasn’t a great time of the year for frog calling and there was a large storm blowing in and several Tornado Warnings. Our guide said that the frogs were there, but the impending storms were keeping them quiet. Undaunted, our froggy guide led us back inside just as the rain was starting to come down and let us see photos of the LA (Lower Alabama) Frogs and played us some taped recordings of their calls. Not quite as good as the real thing, but we had lots of laughs anyway.

Friday morning we all met downstairs in our lodge to head out on our field trips. I chose to go to Turtle Point Environmental Science Center in Flomaton. We spent the morning hanging out with the staff, touring the beautiful facility, and meeting some of the resident snakes, turtles, and other wildlife that call Turtle Point their home. The facility was top notch and the staff was very helpful and best of all I got some great ideas to bring back to the Dunn Center!

That afternoon there were several learning sessions available for me to attend. Then we met our Keynote Speaker Mr. Roger Reid who is a writer, director, and producer of Discovering Alabama. After Roger was finished, we all headed over to the Solon Dixon Forestry Education Center (my old stomping ground) for dinner, awards, and the live auction. Dinner was great and I took home a beautiful wildlife quilt from the auction.

Saturday was the final day of the conference. After breakfast, the rest of the learning sessions were held, lunch, and then I headed home. It was a great meeting this year jam-packed with a ton of great ideas. If you are an environmental educator or a science teacher you need to be a member of this organization. And the meetings are great and not to be missed!