Sandy Creek Nature Center Environmental Issues Essay
Sandy Creek Nature Center is located in Athens, Georgia. SCNC is a non-profit private institution, which is aimed to protect and support the habitat of surrounding park area. The territory of the park is 225 acres of woodlands and wetlands, where Sandy Creek Nature Center occupies an eco-friendly building. Apart from the permanent staff members and invited specialists, a lot of volunteers take part in the Nature Center’s activities. (for example, the controlled burn crew consists both of professional firemen and trained volunteers)
Sandy Creek Nature Center also promotes the environmental education by offering the learning programs for children and adults at the Education & Visitor Center. In this center one may find interactive exhibits dedicated to natural history, enormously diverse scientific library full of valuable sources and a lot of live animals displayed. Plenty of side-projects aimed at popularization of science among the general public are held at the Center. For instance, in the summer of 2013 the moth observation project has started, which both increased the amount of research data on the topic of moths’ reaction to temperature changes and acquainted [familiarized] visitors with the scientific research procedure. In June 2016 the Snake Day was organized at the Centre, attracting more than 900 visitors to watch and examine different species of live snakes.
Most of the literatures one can find about the Sandy Creek Nature Center are the local newspapers’ reports and scientific articles concerning the researches where the samples of soil and water from the SCNC area were used, not to mention the detailed documentation on the current projects at the official webpage of the Center. The articles, though, provide a pretty clear insight on the history of the land, which is now occupied by the institution especially on the brick factory period. This information is not in the conflict with the one that was acquired personally during the service at the Center, the sources are just complementing each other.
Initially, in the early 1800 there was an active cotton cultivation, which considerably damaged the soil and left it low in nutrients. At the end of 19th century the brick factory named “Georgia Brick Company” was built in the site. There were three areas where the clay for bricks was mined. Native Americans were digging clay for the pottery there a long time ago, as archeologists argue.
The technology used at the “Georgia Brick Company” named the method of kilns was novelty at the time: the bricks were molded from clay and afterwards would pass through the long tunnel where they would be heated and burnt several times. The process was time consuming (from 7 to 10 days for each load5) and required a lot of fuel. All the trees around the factory were harvested and used for the burning. Fortunately, such irresponsible …
