ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Imagine a place where students can spend part of the day looking at and touching creatures and plants that make the Gulf Coast their home. Then they can spend another part of the day learning about the stars they see at night. And imagine lesson plans put together by an experienced science teacher, so what students learn can be integrated into their normal science program.

Sounds like Neverland, doesn’t it?

That place is a reality at Orange Beach Elementary School, called the Steven W. Baker Sea, Sand and Stars Science and Nature Center.

“The whole thing was the vision of the late Stephen Baker, (former principal of OBES)” explained Lisa Allen, the center’s director. “He wanted to create a science lab to teach about what is all around the students.”

The center now features a planetarium, and has an expert come in on a regular basis to care for the fish. The walkways around the center enable students and teaches to observe wildlife.

Allen says there is a pitcher plant bog under the walkway. All that works with the mission of the facility to teach youngsters about native species found in coastal Alabama.

Allen, a former high school science teacher, has a degree in marine science and biology. She was hired in 2006, a year before the facility opened.

Rhonda Brantley is the assistant director.

“The idea just grew,” said Allen, noting that Baker first proposed the science center in 2002. The center is a joint development of the city of Orange Beach, the Baldwin County Board of Education and Brett-Robinson. Baldwin EMC funded the planetarium projector.

Allen says the facility cost around $1.8 million to build, not including Orange Beach’s contribution and the BCBE providing the property.

Taking center stage is a giant 7,700-gallon aquarium stocked with native Gulf fish. There are touch tanks for the children to handle sea creatures, a classroom for demonstrations and tanks so classes can raise their own marine life for other science classes.

According to Allen the fifth-grade students raise horseshoe crabs from eggs and record their observations for the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

“I would say there isn’t a facility like this anywhere in the country,” Allen said. “We are teaching children who have never been to the beach. We also are teaching future leaders of the area to appreciate where they live.”

She added that OBES students have regular science classes at SS and S, integrated into their classroom studies two weeks a month.

“It’s like a school within a school,” said Allen. “It’s a huge responsibility.”

The other weeks in the month, the facility is open for field trips for students from other schools. Allen and Brantley communicate with the field trip teachers so the things visiting students learn at Sea, Sand and Stars works with their regular classroom lessons. At this time, the center is not open to the general public.

“Last year, we had 3,500 students in addition to the 417 students we have on campus,” said Allen. Visiting students come from Baldwin, Mobile and Escambia counties in Alabama and Escambia County in Florida.

There are some animal celebrities.

“It has to be the sea stars,” laughed Allen. The long-armed, spiny relative to the starfish lives in the touch tanks in the facility, and Allen says they can be found in rocky places on our coast. Next in line would be some of the angler’s dream fish in the aquarium.

BCBE pays for utilities and insurance. Allen says the rest of the center;s operating expenses are paid through admission charged to visiting students and from proceeds from the gift shop.

“(The center) gives students an appreciation of the natural environment,” said Brantley. “They learn that their lifestyle has an impact on that environment.”

“This is a place where we can teach future leaders of the area to appreciate where they live,” said Allen. She noted many of her students are from families that make a living from the ocean, and have different names for the creatures in the center.

The first students to use SS and S are now in ninth grade, says Allen.

“They ask me if they can come beck,” laughed Allen.