Lyonia Environmental Center launches learning live on Facebook
Posted On: March 31, 2020
The Lyonia Environmental Center (LEC) in Deltona is a great place to learn about the world around us. And that hasn’t stopped just because the center is temporarily closed to the public due to the coronavirus crisis.
On Monday, the LEC launched a series of live, online programs – part educational and part just plain old fun. The center joins Volusia County Library Services and the county’s Marine Science Center in offering regular virtual content through Facebook live events to help families stay mentally stimulated and children get some home-schooling while sheltered in their residence.
“We’re going to do some live animal encounters, some science experiments – all kinds of fun things to help you navigate this world of virtual learning. It’s new to you all, it’s new to us,” Sandy Falcon, the center’s manager, said during a Facebook live broadcast last week announcing the new online programming. “We will do our best to be able to help you out, help you enhance that curriculum – but also give you all some fun brain breaks and just enjoy some time with your family.”
On Friday, the LEC posted an approximately two-and-a-half-minute, pre-recorded video on its Facebook page featuring one of the center’s animal care coordinators cradling Igor, a lizard-like creature known as a blue-tongue skink. Sure enough, the camera zoomed in to capture images of the skink’s distinctive, slithering blue tongue. The video has generated more than 2,400 views.
“Love these. Thanks for this!” posted one viewer.
And on Monday, the Facebook live programming kicked off in earnest with something called rep-tales – a virtual story time that was accompanied by one of the LEC’s reptile animal ambassadors, a brightly-colored red rat snake believed to be approximately 17 years old. After showing the friendly reptile wrapped around a handler’s hand and arm for warmth, the live broadcast launched into story time with a reading of the delightful children’s book, Fidgety Fish and Friends.
The LEC will be broadcasting live on Facebook every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11:15 a.m. Future programs will include such things as craft demonstrations, virtual hikes into the adjacent, 360-acre Lyonia Preserve, interactive games, educational talks about manatees and gopher tortoises and live feedings in saltwater aquariums.
The live programming can be viewed on the Lyonia Environmental Center’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/VolusiaLEC/