The 19.8-acre Girl Scout property on Ilchester Road in Ellicott City -- visited by thousands of girls each year -- is getting a new nature center, named for Caitlin Dunbar, an ardent Girl Scout who died in 2004, when she was 15.
The Caitlin Dunbar Nature Center will have a focus on science and will include a sunflower garden that produces seeds for biofuel, observation beehives and a fossil collection. Terrapins will be raised and released.
In the days before the grand opening, scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, members of local Girl Scout troops have been painting murals of nature scenes on the walls, building book cases and collecting supplies. Sunday would have been Caitlin's 19th birthday.
The River Hill High School sophomore died in December 2004, less than 24 hours after being diagnosed with leukemia.
Caitlin's father, Alex Dunbar, described his daughter as a "tree hugger" who loved the outdoors. Even as a young girl, 4 or 5 years old, she would refer to trees outside the car window as "my trees" and get upset when they were later taken down to make room for development, he said.
Caitlin attended many programs at the Ilchester property, and had gotten to the level of "program aide," meaning she had leadership responsibilities.
The property has been owned by the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland since the 1940s, said Billy Heinbuch, an outdoor ranger specialist for GSCM. A building was erected in the early 1990s, but the site had no nature center.
Before working together on the Ilchester nature center, Heinbuch had collaborated with Alex Dunbar to create a nature center at Camp Conowingo, in Cecil County. That center, which opened in 2006, started as a way for Alex to use money donated in Caitlin's name.
"With the success of that, we said, `We need something here that we can use year-round,'" Heinbuch said.
"We knew that this property was here and underutilized," Dunbar said.
The new nature center, he said, will "provide a hands-on look at nature." Girls will be able to monitor the activity of bats and bluebirds flying in and out of the houses built by Scouts.
Outside the building, a sunflower garden will be planted. Dunbar said each girl could bring home one sunflower seed to grow, and eventually "everyone in Howard County could grow one sunflower." The seeds are to be harvested for fuel.
Rain barrels will collect water for the garden. A composting center will be established.
