Florida House Learning Center History

April 2007 

The Florida House Learning Center in Sarasota, Florida, is a model home and landscape demonstrating green building and sustainable living.  It was originally conceived as an educational outreach for water conservation after a severe regional drought in the late 1980s, and it is believed to be one of the first such educational demonstration facilities in the country. 

By 1990 Sarasota, like the rest of the Tampa Bay region in Florida, was under serious water restrictions.  Despite a barrage of public media exhortations to conserve water, water consumption continued to rise. Finally, a building moratorium referendum was placed on the November ballot.  The local political climate was highly charged and focused on “growth” versus “no-growth.”

A few interested citizens, led by the University of Florida/IFAS Sarasota County Extension and stimulated by a desire to develop a community-based solution to the water conservation challenge, organized diverse community interests into a coalition to explore common ground.  Their goal was to increase public participation in the planning process and the conservation campaign through demonstrating positive economic solutions for environmental problems.  Discussions centered around the construction of a model home and landscape that would be a new and innovative learning center to demonstrate real life solutions to water, energy and environmental dilemmas.  In that center Extension educators and trained volunteers would provide teaching and guidance for visitors to the center.

The non-profit Florida House Institute was formed to lead the effort through visioning, planning, fund-raising and construction.  Professionals volunteered their time to develop plans for the house and landscape using most current resource conservation products and materials. It quickly became obvious that the project afforded a not-to-be-missed opportunity to demonstrate not only water conservation, but building techniques and a design and development philosophy that would lead toward a sustainable lifestyle in which resources are used with maximum efficiency.  Today we call this green building and sustainable living. Committees were formed to take on leadership in landscaping, house design, fundraising and education, and a final planning decision was made to use the traditional Florida “cracker style” model for the house.

The Sarasota County School Board became a partner in the effort and donated a site for the house and landscape on the campus of the Sarasota County Technical Institute.  The School Board rented the site to the County for $1 a year for a period of five years, which has now stretched to 15 years.  The Southwest Florida Water Management District provided the first grant, for $80,000.  This grant required matching funds, so in-kind services and donations were solicited from businesses and individuals.  Florida Power and Light Company donated $20,000; the Selby Foundation donated $40,500; and the National Estuary Program and Home Depot Corporation donated $10,000 each.  All told, there were more than 200 contributors for the project.  In the years since the project was built, more than 100 more contributors have donated products or services to the project.     

In September of 1992 a Groundbreaking Ceremony was held, and the Florida House Learning Center, as it came to be called, became more than just a vision.  Throughout 1993 scores of community volunteers built the Florida House with guidance from professionals.  Students from the Technical Institute on campus helped with the construction of the house as a part of their building trades curriculum.  Even before the house was completed, it was entered into and became part of the 1993 Sarasota Parade of Homes.

The construction took nearly two years to complete.  In early 1994 the finishing touches were put on the house and landscape, and it opened to the public on Earth Day in April of 1994.  The thousands of man-hours that were donated by hundreds of volunteers had created a unique community demonstration center unlike any other, and a huge plaque in the covered porch commemorates each donor and testifies to the fact that this special project was truly a community endeavor.  It was not surprising that the center quickly became a Sarasota treasure; what was surprising was the speed with which it became a regional, statewide, national, and even international attraction.  It was a new, effective public education delivery system that showed citizens the best off-the-shelf technologies to promote resource conservation, recycling and building techniques and materials that enhance our quality of life while protecting our environment and meeting our economic sustainability needs. 

In addition to its educational mission, the project seeks to stimulate consumer demand for “green” products and methods, and everything featured at the Florida House is readily available off the shelf.  By demonstrating positive, real life, economic solutions to environmental dilemmas, the Learning Center has stimulated the marketplace in a number of tangible ways, for example, the creation of an Environmental Award category in the annual Homebuilder’s Parade of Homes.  Where once there were none, Sarasota now boasts many builders and developers committed to achieving certification by the Florida Green Building Coalition.  Scores of new homes embodying Florida House concepts have been built.

Description of the Learning Center

The house is a modern “Florida Cracker” style home with 2375 square feet of indoor-outdoor living space, including screened porches.  It features numerous water and energy-conserving designs and devices, as well as building materials with recycled content.  Energy Star® appliances and such renewable resources as Bamboo and Cork flooring are highlighted, along with recycled plastic carpet and ceramic tiles made from recycled auto windshields.

The “Model Florida Yard” demonstrates xeriscaping, micro-irrigation, composting, edible landscaping, reduced use of pesticides, fertilizers, water and energy, reduction of detrimental stormwater run-off, and two 2500-gallon cisterns which collect rainwater for use in irrigation.  The Learning Center also uses extensive educational signage in the yard and in the house.

Since the project began, the Learning Center has averaged about $12,000 of in-kind donations per year, and more than 150 new “green” products and services have been incorporated since its inception. In 2006 alone, the following new displays were added:

• Clear Accordion Hurricane Shutters
• Fabric/Mesh Hurricane Shutters
• Porous Recycled Rubber Sidewalk
• Palmwood Flooring
• Almendro-Teak FSC-Certified Flooring
• Strand-Woven Bamboo Flooring
• Tube Skylight with Exhaust Fan & Artificial Light
• Tube Skylight with Daylight Dimmer Control
• Tankless Water Heater
• Automatic Sensor Faucet
• Soy-based Foam Insulation Display
• Rain Barrels
• Butterfly House

Educational Outreach

An average 10,000 visitors come to the Florida House each year, and many more enter through the landscape or back door and are not counted.  Classes are taught one day a week at the Florida House, and guided tours are provided to groups of school children as well as adult groups and individuals visiting the Florida House.  Special events are an important part of Florida House outreach.  Examples from 2006 include Earth Day, Wildlife Gardening Day, Change a Light Day, Creepy Crawly Day, NRDC Hybrid Car Rally, Wildflower Week, Casa Abierta Hispanic Day and Butterfly Gardening Day. 

This large educational outreach is supported by an annual county budget of $135,000, of which $27,000 is operating expense.  Two full time county staff and 50+ volunteers greet visitors, give tours, answer questions, maintain extensive literature racks, work with donors and trades people, maintain the landscape, and manage the building and grounds.  Master Gardener volunteers undergo 10 weeks (80 hours) of rigorous training in Florida-friendly Landscaping ™ before serving as tour guides and educators in the landscape, and Master Conservationist volunteers undergo 9 weeks (40 hours) of extensive training in green building and sustainable products before providing indoor tours and education.

Educational Impact

The mission of the Florida House Learning Center is six-fold: water conservation, energy efficiency and conservation, indoor environmental quality, sustainable materials, durability (storms and termites) and buying locally.  The educational strategy is not just to teach visitors green building and sustainable living, but to foster actual behavior change in these areas. Data collected over eleven years show the following annual averages:

Annual Averages

Visitors	10,200
Telephone Inquiries	8,700
Educational Materials Distributed	100,000+
Educational Classes	38
Class Participants	1,330
Average Knowledge Gain	37%
Children’s Tours	20
Students	450
Average Student Knowledge Gain	38%
In-Kind Donations	$12,000+
Partnerships	57
Volunteers	75
Volunteer Hours	3,800

                                       

The most significant achievements of the Florida House Learning Center are the knowledge gain and practice/behavior change reported by visitors to the Center.  Educational classes held there on green building and sustainable living topics report a 37% average knowledge gain in class participants, and Resource Conservation Tours for school children generate an average knowledge gain of 38% as measured on pre- and post-test scores. 

Time-lapse survey data collected over eleven years is even more compelling.  Each year in January the Florida House staff and volunteers mail surveys to an average 1500 first- time visitors from the previous year.  Returned responses average 24.4%, or about 366 completed surveys.  These surveys show the following impacts:

Satisfied or Very Satisfied with Visit	98%
Gained Knowledge	100%
Intend to Change Behaviors	99%
Changed Behaviors	63%
Redesigned Landscape	52%
Remodeled House	23%
Upward trends over time are noted for both green home remodeling and landscape redesign.

 

Staff and volunteers at the Learning Center feel that one of the most important determinants of visitor behavior change is the one-to-one interaction that happens between visitors and volunteers or staff.  A volunteer may spend ½ hour or more with a visitor demonstrating products, answering questions and providing information.  This one-to-one contact is a critical part of the behavior change equation.