The Decatur City Schools Foundation.

Making an impact on our children's education.

Wetlands Edge Environmental Center

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Decatur City Schools Foundation contributed $80,000 over four years to establish and support The Wetlands Edge Environmental Center (WEEC), a partnership between BP and Decatur City Schools. WEEC provides hands-on educational opportunities across the K-16 curriculum to all students who visit. Located on BP's 500+ acres of award winning Certified Wildlife Habitat, WEEC offers programs in two classrooms/labs with numerous live displays, including two floor-touch tanks, a 1650-gallon marine tank, and a 780-gallon freshwater ecosystem. In addition, more than two miles of trails traverse the habitat enabling students to see several diverse ecosystems including a swamp, a marsh, a pond, bottomland hardwoods, upland species, young pines, and an old oak grove climax community.

"Throughout the 1990s, helping students expand their horizons with unique, cutting-edge environmental education was the dream of several Decatur City Schools educators. The only obstacles were absolutely no funding and no habitat in which to teach! Enter a group of visionaries--teachers, school and business personnel--from BP, Decatur City Schools, and the Decatur City Schools Foundation, who combined their ideas, resources, and dedication to students to make possible the formation and implementation of Wetlands Edge Environmental Center. The extraordinary success and popularity of the center, which has served more than 38,000 K-16 students, teachers, parents, volunteers, and community members since it opened in February 2002, has been made possible in large part thanks to multi-year funding by the Decatur City Schools Foundation."
- Susan Estes, Retired Science Teacher, Wetlands Edge Environmental Center