Welcome to the home page for Environmental Education Centers.
Our environmental mission is to educate all Pasco County students in the concepts that protect our environment and its valuable resources. Through our programs, students develop a sense of personal and collective responsibility for the preservation of Florida’s precious ecosystems.
Our Centers:
Pasco County’s Energy and Marine Center is located on a coastal hammock on the Salt Springs Run Estuary in Port Richey, Florida. This facility is ideal for research involving coastal ecology, wetlands, marshlands, and estuarine environments. Here Salt Springs drain into the Gulf of Mexico providing comparisons between freshwater and saltwater environments. The center is surrounded by marsh grasses, three species of mangrove, and oyster bars. Frequent visitors to the center outside of the students, includes raccoons, foxes, armadillos, marsh hares, marsh periwinkles, egrets, herons, stingrays, fiddler crabs, turtles and tortoises, dolphin, the occasional manatee, and much much more.
The EMC currently supports our Marine Explorer Programs for all 4th graders within the district and is also used for EcoResearchers Program
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Donna Hoague (Elementary) 727-774-0580 |
Josh McCart (High School) 727-774-0587 |
Pasco County’s Cross Bar Ranch Environmental Education Center is located on a 12,500-acre well field in north-central Pasco County, Florida. This facility is ideal for activities involving wetlands ecology, deciduous forests and prairie environments. Cross Bar is home to 17 wells that produce 22.5 million gallons of water per day to contribute to the region’s drinking water supply and are managed by Tampa Bay Water, which serves Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
Cross Bar Ranch Environmental Education Center currently supports our Middle School environmental program (Watershed Ambassador Program) for all 7th graders within the district and is also used for our EcoResearchers high school programs.
Cross Bar Ranch, Lockett Road North Pasco, FL
Karen Stewart-Environmental Resource Teacher- Middle School
The Starkey Environmental Education Center is located in Pasco County’s J.B. Starkey Wilderness Park in New Port Richey, Florida. This facility is open from dawn to dusk and is 8,069.0 Acres in size. This facility is ideal for activities involving, wetlands, temperate deciduous forest, and prairie environments. Pine flatwoods, sandhills, hardwood hammock, cypress and river swamp, and freshwater marshes are only a few of the dozen plant communities that occur on this site. The park is bordered on the northwest and south by the Pithlachascottee (Cottee) and Anclote rivers. There is a 1.3-mile self-guided trail, eight miles of horse trails, thirteen miles of hiking trails, and a three mile bike path. The Cottee River runs through the park on its way to the Gulf of Mexico providing comparisons between different aquatic systems. Frequent visitors to the center outside of its normal load of students, include raccoons, foxes, turtles and tortoises, white tail deer, armadillos, possums, egrets, herons, and much much more.
Starkey Environmental Education Center currently supports our Middle School program (Watershed Ambassador Program) for all 7th graders within the district and is also used for the EcoResearchers High School Programs. The center also hosts our annual Wild Weekend Training.
Starkey Environmental Education Center
10500 Wilderness Park rd.
New Port Richey, FL
Watersheds Ambassadors eProjects
Contact: Karen Stewart
