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SUNY Cortland has recognized the value of outdoor and environmental education since the mid-1930s when it began to require physical education students to participate in two-week camping programs as part of their formal training. Opportunities for study and field work in the outdoors have expanded greatly since that time and many of Cortland’s academic departments now make use of three adjunct campuses which the College has developed to support outdoor and environmental education programs.
Center for Environmental and Outdoor Education
Jack C. Sheltmire, Director
P.O. Box 99, Raquette Lake, NY 13436
(315) 354-4784
Miller Building, Room 230
(607) 753-5488
The Center for Environmental and Outdoor Education provides an outstanding natural setting for students to examine most aspects of the environment. The Center’s forests, bogs and ponds serve as natural laboratories for courses in the biological sciences. Raquette Lake provides an elaborate research area in which students examine the unpolluted waters.
Physical education and recreation students also make extensive use of the Center for Environmental and Outdoor Education in required and elective courses. Students from all disciplines enjoy opportunities at the Center to learn how to use the outdoors as a classroom for academic subjects and to learn to develop an appreciation for the outdoor environment.
The Antlers, on the west side of Raquette Lake, serves both as a docking area for those going to Camp Huntington and as a site for conferences and classes. A paved road from Route 28 leads to the Antlers.
Hoxie Gorge Nature Preserve
R. Lawrence Klotz, Biological Sciences Department
Bowers Hall, Room 240
(607) 753-2715
The primary purpose of the Hoxie Gorge Nature Preserve is to provide an opportunity for class and individual study, research and enjoyment of the environment. Located only seven miles from campus, Hoxie Gorge is easily visited from campus during a two- or three-hour class period. Approximately 1,000 students per year are involved in academic field study there.
Faculty and students have used Hoxie Gorge extensively for research purposes. This research has attracted more than $500,000 in grants and resulted in approximately 30 journal publications. Research topics include insect chemical ecology and behavior, tax-onomy of mushrooms, conservation biology of amphibians, pollination biology of flowering plants and nutrient cycling in streams.
Go to this link to view the McDermott Nature Trail Guide.
Robert C. Brauer Memorial Field Research Station
Jack C. Sheltmire, Director
P.O. Box 99, Raquette Lake, NY 13436
(315) 354-4784
Miller Building, Room 230
(607) 753-5488
SUNY Cortland’s Robert Brauer Memorial Field Research Station is the only major geological facility in State University of New York. It is located in the town of Bethlehem, eight miles south of Albany and near the famed Helderberg Escarpment — an area known to geologists as a classic region of fossiliferous limestone and shale formations of the Devonian age.
A main building and bunkhouse on the 33-acre tract provide classroom, dining and sleeping accommodations for approximately 36 students. This facility is used by the College’s Geology Department as a base for studies of the Catskill Mountains, mid-Hudson Valley and Taconic Range, which offer sections of Lower and Middle Paleozoic carbonate and terrigeneous rocks, structurally complex and metamorphic terranes, and widespread Pleistocene landforms and deposits.
The Adirondacks and Berkshires also are accessible from Brauer for field trips and provide opportunities for examining igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks of the Precambrian age.
The Brauer Field Station is available for use by other educational institutions and professional organizations. In addition to activities sponsored by the College’s admissions and alumni affairs offices, SUNY Cortland and other institutions have used this facility for programs in biology, foreign language, and geology.
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