HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF DUNES LEARNING CENTER
Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center, Inc., now doing business as “Dunes Learning Center,” was established as a regional resource dedicated to residential environmental education. Dunes Learning Center provides a classroom without walls in which students interact directly with the natural environment. The setting provides a unique exposure to a globally significant natural environment and one of the world’s great urban/industrial regions. Students gain new knowledge and understanding about how improving the quality of life is dependent upon our success in sustaining and integrating these two environments.
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Dunes Learning Center came together in 1997 to create a public/private partnership that would provide residential environmental education opportunities to students, educators, and learners of all ages. This partnership has enabled Dunes Learning Center to address its educational goals while enhancing and expanding the interpretive mission of the National Lakeshore.
Authorized in 1966, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore became the first national park in an urban setting. The development of a residential camp at the National Lakeshore’s Camp Good Fellow site was incorporated into the park’s general management plan in 1980. In 1995, Congress committed to the longstanding plan by allocating funds for the first phase of the center’s design and construction. Phase one included the building of 10 residential cabins, accommodating 80 participants, and Cowles Lodge, a dining hall/multi-purpose building. In addition, funding allowed for construction of a campfire area, trails, road and utility improvements.
Programs developed and offered by Dunes Learning Center continue a legacy of education established in the dunes more than a century ago. At Indiana Dunes, in the late 1800’s, Dr. Henry Chandler Cowles made significant contributions to the emerging science of ecology. In 1899, Cowles’ published his thesis on plant succession based on studies and fieldwork conducted in the Dunes. The publication of Cowles’ work excited the scientific community and focused worldwide attention on the dunes. Throughout the early 1900’s, Cowles lead frequent field trips to the dunes. As a result of Cowles’ work, Indiana Dunes have often been heralded as the birthplace of ecology.