Old Lyme ― For 10-year-old Joan Crawley, this Election Day was for the birds.

The Old Lyme resident spent the day off from school at the Connecticut Audubon Society regional center on Lyme Street named for the famed naturalist Roger Tory Peterson. While she has been a regular at the center’s summer and after-school programs for years, it was her first time in the new Kelsey Family Children’s Innovation and Discovery Center in the revamped caretaker’s cottage of the former Bee & Thistle Inn.

Crawley recounted looking at slides of bugs and leaves on digital microscopes in one of the new classrooms. She sat on the expansive deck overlooking the Lieutenant River as students worked with soil, gravel and rocks in an experiment on erosion. She helped close down two new raised garden beds for the winter. She fashioned a fairy house out of twigs and string.

She said the Roger Tory Peterson Estuary Center has given her an appreciation for the environment she might not have otherwise.

“It’s shown me nature in different ways, and how much fun you can have using it,” she said.

Director Alisha Milardo during a recent tour said the new children’s center and improvements to the grounds represent ongoing efforts to bring the center’s conservation and education mission to a wider swath of the population along the lower Connecticut River and Long Island Sound.

“We’re here to protect and conserve southeastern Connecticut: the wildlife, the habitats and the environment,” she said.

In late 2020, the center purchased the 5.25-acre inn site with a 1756 main house and a 1935 cottage steeped in history and river views. Milardo said the gardens, trees, wetlands and water provide dedicated access to an outdoor classroom where learning about ecology is “fun, hands-on, and joyful.”

The organization's mission, forged in 2015 and honed in an office in a Halls Road shopping plaza, quickly outgrew the available space at a time when facilitators were bringing nature instruction to 5,000 people in schools and outdoor locations across the region.

Now, she said, the goal is to deliver programming to 10,000 people when the organization celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2025.

The group spent $1.25 million on the former inn, according to assessor’s records. Not yet substantially upgraded, the first floor of the 7,257-square-foot building boasts office space, meeting rooms, and a classroom for older students where the inn’s commercial kitchen used to be.

Claudia Weicker, chairwoman of the center’s Board of Directors, said the centerpiece of the first round of improvements to the property is the nearly $750,000 renovation of the 1935 caretaker’s cottage into the Kelsey Family Children’s Innovation and Discovery Center.

The cottage’s interior this year was gutted to make room for two classrooms dedicated to children ages 3 to 10 and an upstairs apartment for visiting scientists and interns. The new deck serves as the foundation for an outdoor classroom that feeds into a backyard marked by the raised gardens and a planned gathering area overlooking the river.

“We wanted a facility for younger children, a place where they would be welcomed and not overwhelmed by the larger building, which can be a little off-putting for young children,” she said.

On a recent tour of the property, Milardo showed off the classrooms with brightly colored floors, child-sized tables and stools, and scientific equipment.

“Everything’s at their level,” she said.

She pointed to microscopes with digital screens that make science accessible for those raised on smartphones and watches. Slides available for viewing featured specimens ranging from plankton to cockroach legs.

Milardo described the innovation and discovery center as a blend of technology and the outdoors.

“You can’t fight technology. It’s a part of our everyday life,” she said. “But there’s a time to be outdoors and explore and just be in nature. And we try to balance that for everyone.”

The renovation was funded primarily by a donation from the family of J. David Kelsey, a real estate investor and prominent local volunteer.

Kelsey in a phone interview said he felt it was important for the organization to have a dedicated space for kids to experience nature.

He described himself as a conservationist who grew up in the 1970s attending ecology camp. The experience instilled the kind of intellectual curiosity he wants to foster in the newest generation of students.

“Obviously you’re in a beautiful setting, with the wildlife available to you directly that you’re hoping to get the kids interested in,” he said.

Jack Schwartz, 10, of Lyme, has participated in the center’s programs after school and during the summer. He detailed writing in a journal during the fall to record the color of leaves on different trees. He said he would learn about birds in the lab and then go outside to listen for birds and use binoculars to spot them. Like Crawley, he looked at various organisms with the smart microscope.

He said the counselors and facilitators play a big part in making it fun to learn about the environment.

“They really know a lot about nature,” he said. “And I feel it’s really nice that they’re there to basically have nature recognized.”

Magic in action

Renovations in the main house to improve accessibility, upgrade electrical and mechanical systems, and create a laboratory for older students and visiting scientists are in the planning stages.

On the other side of the main house, Milardo said, a key component of the initial improvements focused on the sunken garden. That’s where a partnership with master gardeners from the University of Connecticut Extension Program resulted in the creation of a fully native garden to lure pollinators, birds and people who want to relax.

The garden is bordered by a trail featuring the pages of a children’s book spread out page-by-page on mounted signs to encourage reading and exercise.

The outdoor work was bolstered by an $800,000 federal community funding grant to enhance the site’s marine and wildlife habitat, eradicate invasive species, mitigate coastal erosion, establish a living shoreline, and create an accessible trail.

Milardo illustrated the link between education and conservation when she described the successful release this summer of 15 monarch butterflies as part of the Monarch Watch initiative to track the fall migration of a monarch population that’s on the decline.

She said summer campers watched for eggs, placed protective netting over them, and recorded observations and measurements in journals as each chrysalis evolved into a butterfly. The insects were released from the net after 24 hours to ensure dry wings onto which a sticker tag was gently pressed for visual tracking by other volunteers on the way to Mexico and points south.

Milardo, trained in marine science and oceanography at Hawaii Pacific University, likened the scientific study to something enchanting.

“It is magic,” she said. “Magic happens here.”

e.regan@theday.com