What makes learning real and lasting for your average student? Educators agree that students learn better from a hands-on experience that includes observing, investigating, and fact-finding in an exciting, natural environment. The Wetland Environmental Science Education Encounter (WE SEE) makes this possible for thousands of students through a collaborative partnership between the Victoria Independent School District and the local INVISTA manufacturing site. To date, WE SEE has educated almost 28,000 Texans about the importance of our wetlands.

  WE SEE has a state-of-the-art education center located in the heart of a 53-acre wetland—a dynamic, thriving ecosystem where researchers can conduct laboratory and field experiments. The center includes a partially enclosed education building where students can encounter the wetland, its inhabitants, and collect water samples from the facility’s pier. WE SEE educator John Snyder assists 4th through 12th grade teachers with curriculums that cover science, nature, and environmental stewardship through hands-on investigations that correlate with elements from the state educational standards test. These include soil dynamics, microbiology, water chemistry, zoology, entomology, laboratory and field safety, and food webs.

  WE SEE serves as a model for education, industry, and government. The center hosted 3,000 business, government, and science professionals from around the world who seek to start their own wetland and environmental education programs. The wetland also helps return up to 3.2 million gallons of fresh water per day to the Guadalupe River. The center is an ongoing project, with the expectation that it will continue as long as there is a need for environmental education.