Girl on Slide by Don Bolton, 14, Oconee Street Boys & Girls Club

A UGA student-led class in photography taught camera basics, composition, lighting, artistry, and more to 10- to 15-year-olds at the Oconee Street Boys & Girls Club. Read more about the program here.

Georgia Aquarium

In October 2005, the University of Georgia’s Marine Extension Service captured more than 100 cownose rays for the grand opening of Atlanta’s Georgia Aquarium on November 23, 2005. They also collected 14 spotted eagle rays, several roughtail stingrays, one Jack Crevalle, and one bullnose ray.

Alvar Suñol (Spanish, 1935- ) Plenitud, 2007, Oil on canvas 44 x 57 inches

Alvar Suñol, one of Spain’s most important contemporary artists, has donated one of his paintings to the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Titled Plenitud (Plenitude in English), the painting will hang permanently in the lobby of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. On February 6, 2007, the work was unveiled as part of the yearlong celebration of the Georgia Center’s 50th anniversary. Click here for more about Alvar, and here for more about the Georgia Center’s 50th.

Ed Jackson

In 1958, nearly 4 million people lived in Georgia and the first interstate highway project was under construction. Future governors Carl Sanders, George Busbee and Zell Miller were just beginning their political careers. And the University of Georgia was developing a unique program for new Georgia General Assembly members.

Today, the state population has topped 9 million and the Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators is one of the nation’s top-ranked legislative training programs. Every two years, UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government plans and conducts the three-day Biennial agenda, which consists of orientation for newly-elected legislators and policy panels for all participants. (A preliminary orientation session in November at the state capitol was added in 2004.)

The Biennial Institute began during a time when there was growing interest nationwide in improving state legislatures, said Ed Jackson, Vinson Institute faculty member and long-time Biennial instructor.

“In the late 1950s, the Georgia General Assembly was functioning largely as a citizen legislature characterized by low pay, short sessions, few offices, and little or no staff,” he said. “Bill Collins, who was director of the Institute of Government and the university’s first associate director of continuing education, proposed the creation of a training program for new lawmakers and a setting for the facilitated discussion of critical state policy issues.”

Held one month after the general election, the Biennial has continued in relatively the same format throughout the years. Sessions are conducted by Vinson Institute faculty, veteran lawmakers and staff, agency administrators and subject experts. Representatives from other University System of Georgia institutions also are involved, providing research assistance and serving on panels. New legislators attending a special session on the first day are instructed in everything from where to park and pick up their mail to the appropriations process, ethics, rules of procedure and how a bill becomes a law.

“The continuing value of the Biennial Institute can be attributed to the planners’ ability to recognize the changing dynamics of the legislature and respond with programming that meets current policy information and training needs for making better-informed decisions for Georgia,” said Steve Wrigley, Vinson Institute director.

At the 25th Biennial, held December 10 to 12, 2006, the policy panels reflected the many complex issues that today’s lawmakers must confront. Sessions explored issues surrounding secondary and higher education, transportation, Medicaid, intergovernmental relations, families and children, emergency preparedness and the state’s energy crisis. The last day was devoted exclusively to state health care concerns.

Former Gov. Miller offered an historical perspective of the Biennial Institute during his keynote remarks. He praised the university’s continuing commitment to helping Georgia lawmakers sharpen their skills and noted that the first Biennial included a 105-question written test on rules of procedure.

At the closing luncheon, Gov. Sonny Perdue outlined his goals for the 2007 session. Reflecting on his personal Biennial experience as a state senator, he commended the program for its ability to help lawmakers “get the big picture” prior to the start of the legislative session.

“It was extremely helpful to have the opportunity to listen to so many viewpoints in one setting,” said newly-elected District 76 Rep. Mike Glanton. “I know that I won’t be able to remember it all, but I do have a much better perspective of the different issues facing the state and who I can contact if I need information.”

Ann Allen

The Georgia General Assembly Training Institute co-sponsors the Biennial Institute. The Institute has been held since its inception in 1958 at UGA’s Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

Dot Paul

Civic education specialist
Carl Vinson Institute of Government

What do you do?

I have a very interesting job. I work with the Georgia General Assembly, local government officials, and educators. I also develop government-centered educational materials that are used primarily in the classroom. I am able to take knowledge and expertise from state and local government people and put that into the classroom. These educational materials help teachers teach about government and civics.

What motivates you?

I’m extremely passionate about the government and history. You can’t start learning about civics and citizenship too soon. If we don’t understand our past, we won’t be very good at shaping our future.

What is your most recent project?

This past summer I coordinated a seminar for teachers called “FDR in Georgia.” Educators from around the state met in Warm Springs to learn about how polio and time spent in rural Georgia influenced Franklin Roosevelt’s personal life and public career. While history has documented the many groundbreaking initiatives of FDR’s presidency, it is important for students to understand the important role that Georgia played in the life and legacy of this great American.

We had a mix of lectures, discussions and visits to the Little White House, the historic therapy pools at Warm Springs and F.D. Roosevelt State Park. We even gave teachers a chance to “interview” the president — well-known FDR re-enactor Thomas Wentland.

What are some ways you are helping educators teach government and civics?

I co-authored The Georgia Studies Book Our State and the Nation, which is the social studies textbook used by more than half of Georgia’s eighth graders. When the state came out with a new curriculum, they called it Georgia Studies because it included Georgia’s history, culture, government and geography. Georgia Studies requires students to be active in their learning, not just sit and be lectured to. I want history to jump off the page of a book and grab students by the collar and say, “Hey, this is important!” The activities and materials in the textbook are the springboard to make that happen.

I also developed a lesson set for older elementary school children called Visiting the Capitol. I wanted kids to come to the capitol and understand what happens there, so I wrote activities that allow them to do that as they move throughout the building. Even if they live too far away to visit, they can still go through the activities and create something that’s meaningful to them.

What are some of your other projects?

As state coordinator, I’m working to get the We the People: Project Citizen program more fully implemented in schools and youth groups like 4-H. This curriculumbased program for middle school and high school students teaches effective citizenship. Students learn how to make a difference by examining local public policy and then developing solutions to community issues. It challenges them to think, “Am I going to whine about it, or am I going to do what needs to be done to make a change?” We need more engaged citizens in our democracy and this is a great tool to accomplish that.

RECENT HONORS

• 2006 Walter Barnard Hill Distinguished Public Service Fellow, UGA’s highest award in public service and outreach
• 2004 George S. Lewis Archaeological Stewardship Award from the Society for Georgia Archaeology, bestowed on a non-professional who helps preserve and promote Georgia’s archaeological heritage
• 2002 Walter Barnard Hill Award, for distinguished achievement in public service and outreach at the University of Georgia
• 2001 Georgia Outstanding Educator Award from the Georgia Council for Social Studies, the most prestigious recognition for social studies education in Georgia

Scott Alexander Lineberger

UGA study examines strengths, weaknesses and gaps in a region’s social services

Just after 9 p.m. on January 25, 2005 — the coldest night of the year, as it turned out — soldiers from Fort Benning marched into a homeless shelter in nearby Columbus, Georgia. They joined a group of about 100 volunteers that was about to survey the problems and needs of area homeless people.

Dennis Epps and Courtney Tobin, both specialists in community economic development at the University of Georgia’s Fanning Institute, gave last minute instructions. Some volunteers would conduct structured in-depth interviews with the homeless in area shelters. Then, at 2 a.m., other volunteers would walk and drive around the city to count people they found living on the streets. They also counted people in jail who had no address. During the early morning hours, Epps found homeless people washing clothes in public restrooms.

“They took advantage of resources and were functioning when most of the rest of us are usually asleep,” he said.

By dawn, the volunteers had counted nearly 1,000 homeless men, women, and children in Muscogee and Russell counties. Additional homeless people were identified by sheriff ’s departments in six surrounding counties during the same week.

This point-in-time count was one part of a comprehensive project designed to uncover gaps in the region’s human social services.

Many service organizations, like the Columbus-area United Way, had been conducting individual studies on the area’s problems, like homelessness, but were unsure how to collect and process the right information to address the issues. They also knew that donors wanted to make sure that funds were used as effectively as possible, that needs were being met and that services were not being duplicated. Continuing to address individual problems piece-meal would allow many of the area’s problems to fester. So a committee of 27 service organizations joined together to undertake one large and integrated study that could provide the basis of a regional strategy.

The overarching committee they formed — the Community Assets and Critical Issue Assessment Committee of the Chattahoochee Valley region, an area including the eight counties around Columbus — hired UGA’s Epps and Tobin to tell a complete story about human service gaps and overlaps that could lay a foundation for future work in the area. Agencies could use the information to apply for federal grants, help make funding decisions, or identify local problems and needs.

A 20-member core assessment committee, seven regional members, and dozens of people from UGA’s Fanning Institute and Carl Vinson Institute of Government worked together, under the direction of Epps and Tobin, to gather stories from 3,700 area residents. Over nine months, the committee identified needed social service programs for seven counties in Georgia (Chattahoochee, Harris, Marion, Muscogee, Stewart, Talbot, and Taylor) and one in Alabama (Russell), which comprise the Chattahoochee Valley region.

A Story Told by Many Voices

Scott Alexander Lineberger

Residents from all eight counties participated in town hall meetings, which provided a forum for many voices to be heard.

“The town hall meetings were the first time that some of these people had ever gotten together to talk,” Epps said. “And they really wanted to express their opinions and offer their ideas,” added Tobin, “to the point where they didn’t want to stop talking.” To make sure that language was not a barrier, Spanish interpreters attended all the meetings.

A thousand high school students also shared their thoughts about their counties’ strengths and weaknesses, largely through their government classes. While the region’s students generally believed drugs to be a serious problem, Talbot County students talked about a decrease in drugs and crime in their communities.

Muscogee County students saw a need for a psychiatric hospital for the uninsured and clean rivers with more green space.

In Harris County, one teen said that the police force was too small to handle the county’s problems, and other students observed a need for full-time firefighters as well. These professionals, the students thought, were needed to reduce response times for emergencies. Another challenge, according to the students, was that limited business opportunities, resistance to industrial development, and, consequently, a lack of jobs causes young people to leave the region.

Although interviews with the homeless, town hall meetings and the high-school students’ discussions gave Epps and Tobin a great deal of information on community perceptions, the two researchers wanted to hear from an even broader set of community voices. To do this, the UGA team conducted online surveys and telephone interviews with nearly 2,000 residents in the eight-county area.

Telling the Story

Scott Alexander Lineberger

All the voices were collected in a final report that presented the information not only through narrative but also through photos, watercolor drawings, resident quotes, charts, and tables.

The study revealed seven critical issues for the region: (1) poverty, (2) the economy, (3) public safety (including illegal drug use), (4) education, (5) health care, (6) natural environment, and (7) social issues (including teen pregnancy, foster care, child abuse and neglect, transportation, and affordable housing).

There were no major surprises.

“The study verified what we knew in a way that was believable and trustworthy,” said Candyss Bryant, chairperson of the Assessment Committee.

The area’s community members and service organizations continue to use the final report to learn about their region’s human service needs and assets and to begin providing solutions to problems. Inquiries to the assessment committee range from “How do I prepare a simple grant?” to “What is the state of race relations in our region?” Marion County residents have continued to meet on a quarterly basis to talk about critical issues, and organizations have tapped the study’s information both vor outside grants and their own in-house strategic planning. As a result of the study, Muscogee County has launched a racerelations initiative, and other counties are beginning to design poverty initiatives and work on solving other core community issues.

“What we did was provide a way for the community to communicate,” said Epps. “We tested the prevailing public perceptions, and contrasted that with what data actually revealed.”

The uniqueness of the project for Epps and Tobin — not only regarding homelessness but also across all the other critical issues facing the Chattahoochee Valley region — is that everyone had a voice and that all the voices needed to be heard in order for the story of the region to be told.

Leara Rhodes

Undertaking a study of this size required the help of many more people than could be mentioned in the story. In addition to Dennis Epps, Courtney Tobin and thousands of community members, Rich Clark from UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government and Danny Bivins and Jan Coyne from UGA’s Fanning Institute contributed their expertise and hours of “seat time” getting down to the Chattahoochee Valley region.

COTTON IS KNOWN ACROSS AFRICA as “white gold.” In Uganda, it is a cash crop that puts money in the pockets of small-scale farmers. And when turned into textiles and apparel, it holds the promise of fueling an economic revival in the East African nation.

That’s at least as long as special U.S. legislation — the African Growth and Opportunity Act or AGOA — is in effect. Under the act, eligible products from 37 sub-Saharan nations have preferential access to U.S. markets — duty-free and quota-free.

“But having access to the U.S. market is not enough,” said Glenn Ames, director of international public service and outreach at the University of Georgia. “You have to know how to enter the U.S. market and how to build linkages with U.S. companies if you’re going to succeed.”

Ames, an agricultural economist, has helped lead UGA efforts to develop trade relationships between East African entrepreneurs and U.S. businesses, first in Kenya and now in Uganda.

When Uganda was under British colonial rule, cotton accounted for a quarter of the nation’s exports, but political unrest during the 1970s and 80s disrupted cotton production and nearly wiped out the textile and apparel industries. Now that is changing.

For the past decade, Uganda’s annual economic growth has averaged more than 6.5 percent. That growth has largely benefited the south and the capital, Kampala. An expanded cotton market promises to extend that growth to the small farmers of the north.

Glenn Ames

Small-scale farmers in northern Uganda are producing certified organic cotton that will help the nation compete in the fast-growing organic apparel niche market.

“In September 2003, I interviewed directors of some recently reestablished Ugandan textile companies,” Ames said. “I asked what their interests were in furthering trade, especially in apparel and textiles. They said they wanted to develop access to the U.S. market.”

So, Ames and UGA colleagues, in partnership with the Ugandan Investment Authority and the East Africa-America Business Council in Atlanta, hosted training workshops to begin preparing Ugandan textile and apparel companies to enter the U.S. market.

Job Dieleman, a UGA international trade consultant, and Robin Pearson, CEO of Lord & Robin Apparel Company, went to Kampala and presented a workshop on U.S. business practices for Uganda’s apparel industry. They also assessed companies’ export readiness.

“To determine if a company was export ready, we thought about a number of factors,” said Dieleman, who works for UGA’s Small Business Development Center. “Do they make a quality product? Can they respond to large orders? Are they financially healthy? Do they have a good track record?”

The team also looked at pricing and whether transportation networks were in place that offered timely delivery of products to the United States, Ames said.

The workshop offered sessions on American culture, how to deal with U.S. businesses, and how to build partnerships with distributors, agents and other companies. Finally, the team helped six export-ready companies prepare exhibits for one of the most influential trade shows in the apparel industry — the Sourcing at MAGIC Marketplace held at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

In February 2006, representatives from the companies and from the Ugandan Investment Authority headed for Vegas.

“They had no concept how big and diverse the U.S. market is, and they had no idea prices were so low in the U.S.,” Dieleman said. “In fact, several looked for fabric suppliers for their own businesses.”

Glenn Ames

But the trade show also made it clear that Ugandan companies cannot compete head-on with the low prices that China’s apparel industry offers. As a landlocked country, transportation alone adds to the cost of Ugandan goods. Luckily, the companies are in an excellent position to compete in a niche market: organic cotton apparel, such as baby clothes. Those products created the most interest at the Las Vegas trade show and may put Uganda on the radar screen of U.S. investors.

“Northern Uganda has a cottage industry of organic cotton growers,” Dieleman said. “The organic cotton market is less price sensitive, is not a commodity, and is a small niche but a fast-growing one.”

Uganda began growing organic cotton in 1994 and has the potential to be a large producer. Rich soils require little or no fertilizer; natural predators and intercropping eliminate the need for pesticides. And from a marketing perspective, American consumers are likely to welcome the opportunity to buy environmentally friendly products that also help better the lives of small producers and their families.

Nicole Donnelly, founder of BabyLegs LLC, cuddles two orphans at the Sanyu Babies Home in Kampala, Uganda. Donnelly and representatives from organic cotton apparel companies participated in UGA-coordinated trade mission to Uganda and have pledged a portion of sales to help support the orphanage.

“Now we’re in the next stage of the project — taking U.S. companies to Kampala to build on the business relationships that were developed at MAGIC in February,” Ames said.

Led by Ames and Dieleman in October 2006, representatives from five U.S. companies toured Ugandan textile and apparel plants and participated in a conference on the U.S. organic apparel market. During the trade mission, Ames and Dieleman visited farmers in northern Uganda where cotton production is undergoing a revival.

Ames expected that orders for Ugandan goods would result from the trade mission. So far one company has placed an order and other U.S. firms have requested samples to test market. Increased sales resulting from this project will help develop sustainable business relationships with U.S. companies.

KATHLEEN CASON

Paul Efland

BOYS program director Booker T. Hobbs (center) helps Candler County students like Bodhi Roberts (left) and Tré Ross (right) stay on track both academically and socially.

WHEN 12-YEAR-OLD Tré Ross entered the office, Booker T. Hobbs quizzed him about the upcoming football season.

“Are you going to play C team or rec ball?” Hobbs asked. Tré said his coaches told him to continue in the recreational league.

“You’ll have to come to some of my games, Mr. Booker,” said the 5-foot 5-inch, 200-pounder. “I’m going to be playing fullback. I’ll be running over some folks.”

In most settings, the friendly chatter would have little significance, but Tré is a member of the Candler County Extension BOYS program (short for Building Our Youths’ Skills). The BOYS program — started in fall 2003 with a group of fourth and fifth graders — aims to help students stay on track both academically and socially.

Hobbs, BOYS program director and lifelong Candler County resident, oversees the enrichment program and visits the family of every participant twice a year.

“These families know me, so they’re glad to see me when I visit,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to find out if a boy is having trouble at home or if there are things going on in the family that are making it harder for him.”

At first, the program offered after-school tutoring and social enrichment programs.

“Our students face an array of difficult circumstances,” said Mary White, Candler County extension agent and the driving force behind the BOYS program. “Many come from single-parent families or have parents who work multiple jobs. Some are in foster care and others are shuffled between family members.”

The program’s most obvious effect has been that participants achieved higher standardized tests scores. But White is just as proud of the students’ other accomplishments, although they are a bit harder to quantify.

“When we began this program we had a skeptic say, ‘You’ll never get these kids to do anything,’” White recalled. “But we’ve had students participate in the science fair. And this year alone, seven seventh graders and 14 fifth and sixth graders participated in the 4-H District Project Achievement program.”

Tré points out the 12 academic awards he received this spring including perfect attendance and all As on his report card.

“Mr. Booker is straight up and says the things we need to do and not do,” Tré said. “He’ll tell you, ‘Don’t let your girlfriend get in the way of your schoolwork.’ If my homework is hard, he’ll say, ‘Tré, just focus.’”

White now is looking for funding to continue the BOYS program and establish similar programs at all Candler County’s schools.

“We were concerned that the students would feel stigmatized for participating,” she said. “Instead we’ve had students clamoring to join the program.”

DENISE H. HORTON

BOYS has been supported by a grant from the USDA’s Children, Youth and Families at Risk program.

Courtesy of Carol Cotton

A gift from Lawrence and Sarah Mae Phillips helped underwrite costs of the 2006 UGA Maymester program in Croatia and will support other UGA programs in that Balkan Region.

WHEN RUSTY BROOKS picked up the phone at 4 p.m. one Friday afternoon, he had no idea that eight years of work in Croatia was about to be rewarded. But Brooks, a rural sociologist at the University of Georgia, is no stranger to serendipity. That’s what took him to that Balkan nation in the first place.

While on a Salzburg Fellowship in 1998, he met Tihana Fabijanic, who was developing a heritage trail along the Kupa River Valley in her native Croatia. At that time, Brooks was involved in a project to develop tourism along Georgia’s Highway 441. The pair discovered that their projects shared many of the same problems and opportunities.

So when the Fellowship ended, Brooks spent a few days in Croatia to see Fabijanic’s project first hand. He also visited the University of Zagreb — that nation’s largest and oldest university — where he met UZ’s rector (equivalent to a university president). Brooks explained how outreach work at UGA was helping to promote economic development in the state’s rural areas.

The idea that a university would do more than teach students intrigued the rector. However, like other European universities, UZ is split into autonomous faculties and lacks the funding, institutional support and legal structure to do outreach work, Brooks said. In spite of that, the rector assigned a UZ faculty member to explore how the university might help with rural development and even prepare the nation for entry into the European Union.

Courtesy of Carol Cotton

A gift from Lawrence and Sarah Mae Phillips helped underwrite costs of the 2006 UGA Maymester program in Croatia and will support other UGA programs in that Balkan nation.

That was the beginning of UGA’s connection to Croatia. Since then, faculty and staff from across campus have become involved there, including representatives from higher education, agriculture, forestry, landscape design, and international public service and outreach, to name a few. In all about 50 people from each nation — including faculty, students, artists, business owners and politicians — have participated in several dozen cultural exchanges. Visits to Georgia helped participants see how UGA fosters better government, helps small businesses, improves agriculture and promotes public health, in addition to educating students.

The next phase began when Brooks’ phone rang.

“When Dad called late that Friday afternoon, he wanted to see if I could find someone to translate a letter written in Croatian,” said Carol Cotton, a professor of public health promotion at UGA and the voice on the other end of the line. “Dad is a retired physician and former Air Force Reservist and had been working on the Phillips family genealogy for a decade. He’s 100 percent Croat.”

Lawrence Phillips’ family — spelled Philipoc before an Ellis Island clerk Americanized the surname — had immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s as tensions were growing in the Balkans. The youngest of 10 children, he was raised in a coal mining area of Pennsylvania and now was trying to trace his mother’s transit from Zagreb to the United States.

“I knew he’d keep calling me over the weekend so as we talked I went online and put in ‘Croatia,’” Cotton said. “Rusty A Gift for Croatia Programs Carl Vinson Institute of Government Brooks’ name came up.”

Cotton called Brooks, not expecting to get anyone that late on a Friday. He talked with passion about his work in Croatia and recommended that Keith Langston in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages translate the letter.

Cotton made another call — now at 5:05 — to Langston, who was also in.

“Talk about the stars aligning,” Cotton said. “Forty-five minutes later, Keith faxed the translation back.”

The quick response piqued Dr. Phillips’ interest and he began to look into the work UGA was undertaking in his ancestral home. In January 2006, he and his wife, Sarah Mae, donated $500,000 to support UGA’s work in Croatia and provided additional funds for study abroad programs.

This gift will support faculty and student exchanges between UGA and UZ, and both universities’ faculty will work together to develop public health and economic development programs in Croatia and surrounding nations. While UGA has sponsored a study abroad program in Croatia since 2002, the students who participated in the 2006 Croatia Maymester program were the first to benefit from the Phillips’ generous contribution, which aims to keep the students’ costs low.

“This gift is a personal statement that my father values his heritage,” Cotton said. “Donors don’t care about publicity. They care about tangible things, their passions, their issues. They are willing to support something that’s tangible and will last.”

KATHLEEN CASON

Fran Lapolla

Savannah native Jay Norris (above) cut the ribbon for the Jay Wolf Nature Trail’s grand opening on Skidaway Island, Ga., May 20, 2006. The new ADA-approved nature trail and boardwalk make the Georgia coast accessible to all.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE Savannah native Jay Norris led the way to the water, racing through maritime forest and salt marsh toward the Skidaway River, his wheelchair rolling smoothly over the surface of the trail.

“It’s the first time he’s been on an off-road path and not attached to my back,” said his mother, Dawn Norris. “He was out ahead of me, as independent and carefree as you can expect a 9-year-old to be.”

Jay Norris can now learn first-hand about salt marsh ecology and the Georgia coast thanks to the new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-funded boardwalk and nature trail on Skidaway Island, Ga.

“I saw fiddler crabs, little snails and marsh,” said Jay Norris, who cut the ribbon for the trail’s grand opening on May 20, 2006. “It was great and awesome. I liked it a bunch.”

The University of Georgia’s Marine Education Center and Aquarium on Skidaway Island supports year-round educational programs for both youth and adults, and provides an overview of the physical and biological processes that shape the Georgia coast.

“We continually try to expand our offerings to the general public, both locally and regionally,” said Bob Williams, interim associate director for marine education. “With the boardwalk and nature trail, we had an opportunity to expand what we have to offer outside the building.”

Marine educators imagined building a universally accessible boardwalk that would not only extend over the marsh but also serve as an alternative teaching space to the laboratories, classrooms and original dirt and gravel pathways already in use.

“Our classes were having some impact on the salt marsh,” said marine education specialist John Crawford. “They can’t help but trample on the mud. The marsh recovers, but it takes a little while. We were looking for an alternative and thought maybe a boardwalk would be a way to go.”

The new Jay Wolf Nature Trail begins at the aquarium and winds through a canopy of live oak and laurel trees dripping with Spanish moss before entering the dense woods of maritime forest. Interpretive signs along the way identify trees, plants, and shrubs and provide information on Georgia’s coastal ecology. A few hundred yards into the forest, the trail connects to a new wooden boardwalk that extends over the marsh to the Skidaway River.

Bob Williams

The new ADA-approved trail and boardwalk make the Georgia coast accessible to all.

A platform at the end of the boardwalk allows marine educators to give presentations to groups overlooking the marsh and the river. Every 100 feet or so, gates in the four-feet-high railing open to allow interactive teaching and interpretive education and better views for children and people with disabilities.

“Now with the gates students using a wheelchair can raise and lower anything from a hula hoop to a meter-square sampling device down to the marsh,” Crawford said. That means more interaction with Georgia’s coastal environment, especially for people like Jay Norris who live near the water but have been unable to explore their surroundings on their own.

AMANDA E. SWENNES