ABOUT US

Our mission:  The Chesapeake Ecology Center is dedicated to promoting and educating the public about community greening and conservation landscaping practices for the Chesapeake Bay watershed that result in a healthier and more beautiful environment benefiting residents and the region's biological diversity. 

The Chesapeake Ecology Center (CEC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental organization.  We work with CEC members, volunteers, community groups, teachers and students—including students at Adams Academy at Adams Park Middle School—where we are based.  Notably, Adams Academy at Adams Park serves all of Anne Arundel County and is the only public middle school for behaviorally-challenged students—whom we work with on a regular basis. 

The CEC has grown and bloomed into 20 Native Plant Demonstration Gardens and Sites, located five minutes from downtown Annapolis and the State Capital.  The 10-acre waterfront campus of Adams Academy at Adams Park, situated along the tidal headwaters of College Creek, makes the CEC Gardens and Sites an ideal location to showcase techniques to protect our waterways.  Notably, the grounds have traditionally been called Adams Park and used as such.  Visitors are respectful of the school grounds and generally visit after school hours starting at 4 PM, and anytime on the weekends and during the summer.  Since the CEC works closely with the school, we are able to schedule programs with outside groups during school hours.  We are located in the College Creek watershed; and, in partnership with other groups, we are helping develop the Friends of College Creek Watershed Initiative.

We provide environmental education and, at the same time, develop on-the-ground habitat restoration and protection projects.  The CEC holds volunteer educational planting days, beginning mid-April through November for a variety of community and school groups.  In addition to numerous on-the-ground restoration projects at the CEC, and at many other locations, we promote conservation landscaping through various media, including published magazine articles, our conservation landscaping primer Ecoscaping Back to the Future…Restoring Chesapeake Landscapes, television and radio interviews, our website and quarterly newsletters, and through presentations, workshops, and tours of the CEC Gardens and Sites. 

The 20 CEC Native Plant Demonstration Gardens and Sites are a public resource and have many functions:  They are a local as well as regional resource, showcasing conservation landscaping techniques, designs, wide varieties of native plants and habitat types in which the public and students can participate through engaging, interactive instruction and tours.  The Garden and Sites improve and protect water quality in the adjacent College Creek; and they improve air quality and increase wildlife habitat. 

The public is invited to participate in habitat restoration projects, special programs such as our annual Garden Open House, and to visit the CEC for guided or self-guided tours facilitated by signage, or to take a virtual tour on the CEC Gardens page of this website.  As well, groups are using the CEC Gardens and Sites on their own for classes on native plant identification and garden design, for example, the gardens have been photographed by staff from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other organizations for their classes on conservation landscaping.  Additionally, the CEC has provided various groups with multiple copies of Ecoscaping Back to the Future… for use as a classroom text, for example, a training workshop for 70 teachers at Arlington Echo, and Master Gardener workshops. 

Of course, we welcome volunteer assistance.  If you would like to volunteer to help maintain the gardens, or help with our annual Garden Open House, please contact Zora Lathan at zoralathan@earthlink.net.

An enormous amount of work goes into maintaining all of the Gardens and Sites.  Countless volunteers have put their hearts, souls, and energy into building the CEC programs and Native Plant Demonstration Gardens and Sites; and the benefits for so many groups and individuals are significant.  Although the CEC operates on a very modest budget, we have a very dynamic program.  A committed and savvy Board of Directors has been crucial in developing a structured and strategically focused organization, identifying resources, and in providing hands-on and financial assistance.  The CEC is grateful for the funding we have received from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grants Program, Spring Creek Foundation, and Unity Gardens.  We have also received tremendous assistance from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Anne Arundel County, City of Annapolis, and many other entities.

The CEC Gardens and Sites and environmental education programs for students and the public promote stewardship of natural resources, bring more human diversity to the environmental arena by partnering with a variety of groups, including those in underserved communities, and promote a “sense of place” for the Chesapeake Bay watershed through the use of plants native to the region.