Calusa people living at Pineland might have given the name “Fluttering Butterfly” to the star constellation we now refer to as Orion, imagines Courtney Bass, a sixth grader from Gulf Middle School. Courtney, writing as a part of a language arts activity before her class field trip to the Pineland site, notes the star formation reminded her of “two sharp butterfly wings.” Alexis Vidal, Courtney’s classmate, offered a different interpretation: “This one says you will find love. It shows two becoming one – The Match Maker.”

These Lee County students and many others have a unique opportunity to explore an ancient people, both in classrooms and at Pineland. They visit the long abandoned town of the Calusa Indians, touch long discarded artifacts, recreate long forgotten tools, and imagine anew what life might have been like centuries ago.

The synergy of events on a field trip makes all the difference for student understanding. Students climb a mound and gaze westward across Pine Island Sound toward the distant barrier islands. In the next glance they study the exposed face of a small pit and realize they are seeing perhaps hundreds of years of mound development. Minutes later they sort the raw material of a mound. Meaningless rubble becomes subtle clues to food of the past. “Random” scrapings on a shell become signs of tool construction and use. The mysteries of the mound become stories of our forebears. The sharing of these stories is one result of a collaboration between the School District of Lee County’s Environmental Education (EE) Program and the Randell Research Center. Quality educational materials, student site visits, a summer teacher institute, and broader understandings of the relevance of our Calusa heritage are also taking place, with many future events and programs planned.

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This article was taken from the Friends of the Randell Research Center Newsletter Vol 1, No. 1. March 2002.