For a Good Cause -- Living classroom

--Story by Young Chang, photo by [tk]

When Robert House realized his high school students didn’t have enough

natural settings to visit on field trips, he decided to bring nature to

them.

In 1972, the Laguna Beach resident founded the Environmental Nature

Center and grew it to depict 14 plant communities characteristic of

California. The center also re-created such different settings as a small

desert, a redwood forest, a recycling stream and chaparral.

“As urbanization increased in ... Orange County, we couldn’t take our

students on field trips as easily outside to see these natural areas that

were of biological interest,” said House, who is also a volunteer at the

Newport Beach center. “So we created our own natural areas.”

Many of the trees, shrubs and wildflowers sprouting at the center

today were planted almost three decades ago by House’s students, who

significantly helped him start his project.

Since retiring eight years ago from Newport Harbor High School, House

has remained a volunteer at the center. Busloads of students and teachers

visit every day, and the lessons taught have to do with how the world was

long ago and how it is now.

Programs include teacher workshops and nature camp sessions in the

summer.

He leads walks through the various microcosms on the third Thursday of

each month -- they’re called “Walks with the Founder” -- and teaches his

10,000 or so students a year about the natural settings they don’t

readily get to see.

He calls the center a “green belt nature center” for the area they sit

in, which is near the Back Bay, on the border of Newport Beach and Costa

Mesa.

“This is kind of a unique situation,” House said.

When he’s not leading tours or tending to the general upkeep of the

center, House helps raise funds for such projects as a new building with

a new nature center office, museum and teaching facility.

“It’s a sample of natural California,” he said.