COOPERATIVE PROGRAMS

Institutional Partnerships with the Florida Museum's Southwest Florida Project and Randell Research Center (RRC), 1983 through November, 2005. In alphabetical order:

Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum (Sanibel Island): Florida Museum staff have provided advice, assistance and script review for temporary exhibits on Calusa Indians; also provided images and artifacts for the permanent exhibit, "The Original Shell People."

Barrier Island Parks Society, Lighthouse Museum (Boca Grande): The Florida Museum/RRC provided advice, assistance, script review, and images for permanent exhibit.

Boca Grande Historical Society (Boca Grande): The Florida Museum provided advice, assistance, script review, and images for two temporary exhibits; several public talks were given.

Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium (Fort Myers): The CNCP participated in the State-funded "Year of the Indian" project; received a share of the grant funds to provide a permanent exhibit, a slide exhibit for the planetarium, and a public lecture series; Florida Museum also provided advice, assistance, script review, images for outdoor exhibits; several public talks were given.

Calusa Land Trust (Pine Island): The Florida Museum/RRC contributed information on Calusa Indians for Calusa Land Trust publications.

Charlotte Harbor Environmental Center (Punta Gorda): The Florida Museum/RRC provided advice and comments on site development plans and participated with CHEC in an archaeological research project that led to better site interpretation and information for teachers; several public talks were given at CHEC.

Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program (North Fort Myers): The Florida Museum/RRC provided a special site tour for CHNEP personnel and contributed an archaeology article for a CHNEP publication.

Children's Science Center (Cape Coral): The Florida Museum/RRC provided advice, assistance, script review, and images for permanent exhibits.

Collier County Museum (Naples): The Florida Museum sent the traveling exhibit "The Fishing Heritage of Gulf Coastal Florida" to the Collier County Museum free of charge; also assisted Collier County Museum and Marco Island Historical Society with centennial exhibit on Key Marco discoveries, including loaning of Key Marco artifacts; frequent participation in public programs.

Department of Environmental Protection-Charlotte Harbor State Buffer Preserve: The DEP Buffer Preserve is the cooperating manager of the Pineland Site Complex Florida-Forever project; the Florida Museum's Randell Research Center at Pineland is the lead manager. Florida Museum and DEP work jointly in exotic plant control and wetlands improvement projects at Pineland; Florida Museum projects, such as the Charlotte Harbor Mounds Survey Phase II, help DEP personnel manage sites under their jurisdiction; Florida Museum personnel help monitor archaeological sites within the buffer preserve.

Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge (Sanibel Island): Randell Research Center provided archaeological research services in assessing resources on Buck Key; Florida Museum/RRC personnel help monitor sites in Island Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The RRC is also a regular feature of the annual Ding Darling Days event held in October, including public programs and an educational tent.

Florida Adventure Museum (Punta Gorda): The Florida Museum sent its traveling exhibit, "The Fishing Heritage of Gulf Coastal Florida" to FAM free of charge.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (Marine Research Institute) (St. Petersburg): Shellfish biologist William Arnold is working with UNC's Donna Surge and Florida Museum's Karen Walker to determine the genetic characteristics of the different species of quahog clam and their hybrids. The collaboration benefits all three researchers.

Florida Gulf Coast University (Fort Myers): Florida Museum curator William Marquardt delivered the first public lectures on behalf of FGCU before campus construction had begun. Today, the Florida Museum and FGCU are committed to joint programming and educational opportunities in marine science, archaeology, and environmental education. Pineland served as destination for FGCU's required colloquium on environmental awareness; Randell Research Center hosted archaeological field schools for FGCU in 2000 and 2001. RRC Assistant Director John Worth holds a courtesy faculty appointment in Anthropology with FGCU's Division of Ecological and Social Sciences.

Fort Myers Historical Museum: The FMHM participated in the State-funded "Year of the Indian" project; received a share of grant funds to produce permanent exhibit, public lecture series; Florida Museum also provided advice, assistance, script review, images for permanent exhibits; several public talks were given.

Fort Myers Beach Cultural and Environmental Learning Center: The Randell Research Center cooperated in conceptual planning for the developing learning center at the Mound House.

Historic Spanish Point (Osprey): Florida Museum personnel have worked closely with Spanish Point in site interpretation, an archaeological walking tour booklet, and in the "A Window to the Past" exhibit. A University of Florida archaeologist supervised a volunteer crew that did the excavations for the "Window" project, and the results of the scientific studies were published. Several public talks have been given at Spanish Point by Florida Museum personnel. Volunteers from Spanish Point and the Randell Center have paid enrichment visits to each other's sites.

Lee County Historic Preservation Board (Fort Myers): Since 2002, RRC Assistant Director John Worth has served on this board, which assists Lee County Planning Department staff in historic and archaeological preservation.

Lee County Schools: Thousands of Lee County school children have had hands-on classroom experiences and personal visits to the Pineland site, especially during the "Year of the Indian" project. Field trips to the Randell Research Center have been conducted on a regular basis since 1998, coordinated by the Environmental Education program. The Florida Museum published a 16-page teacher's guide entitled "Archaeology and Environment at the Pineland Site Complex." This teacher's guide was distributed free to all fourth and fifth grade teachers in 1997, and is sent to any teacher who requests it. Training programs for teachers are offered annually by the RRC.

Mote Marine Laboratories (Sarasota): The RRC has been a research partner of the long-term Charlotte Harbor research project since 2002, and has participated in several annual conferences at Mote. In addition, bathymetric survey and subsurface probing were carried out as a cooperative project at the mouth of the Pine Island Canal during 2003.

Mound Key State Archaeological Site/Koreshan State Historical Park: The Florida Museum provided archaeological research services in mapping Mound Key and creating a color brochure distributed by the park. RRC personnel have served as consultants to State Park managers on public usage of the site and have worked with State archaeologists in assessing needs for site protection.

Museum of the Islands (Pine Island): The Florida Museum sent its traveling exhibit, "The Fishing Heritage of Gulf Coastal Florida" to MOTI free of charge; also assisted MOTI with permanent exhibits, including loaning of artifacts; frequent participation in public programs, including co-hosting "Trail of the Lost Tribes" lecture series and archaeological fair in March, 2002.

National Park Service (Southeast Archeological Center): Florida Museum archaeologists Karen Walker and Donna Ruhl direct a program aimed at improving NPS collections from the Everglades National Park. They are combining this work with research on understanding past human-environment relationships in the Everglades and how they changed through time, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1940.

New Arts Festival (Fort Myers): The Florida Museum and Randell Research Center worked with renowned modern dance artist David Parsons in creating an original dance focused on the Calusa Indians. This was performed for the first time in 1997, and has been repeated several times since.

St. Petersburg Museum of History (St. Petersburg): The Florida Museum sent its traveling exhibit, "The Fishing Heritage of Gulf Coastal Florida" to SPMH free of charge.

South Florida Museum (Bradenton): The Florida Museum sent its traveling exhibit, "The Fishing Heritage of Gulf Coastal Florida" to SFMBP free of charge. Florida Museum curators advised SFM on exhibit planning.

Southwest Florida Archaeological Society (Naples/Fort Myers): SWFAS members have been integral members of the Randell Research Center team, working as volunteers in excavation, lab work, and site improvement activities. Over 25,000 hours of volunteer time have been logged by hundreds of individuals, many of whom are SWFAS members. RRC Assistant Director John Worth served on the SWFAS board from 2002 through 2005.

Barbara Sumwalt Museum (Useppa Island): The Florida Museum sent the traveling exhibit, "The Fishing Heritage of Gulf Coastal Florida" to the Museum free of charge; also assisted Useppa Island Historical Society with design of permanent exhibits including loaning of Useppa Island artifacts; Useppa Island was the site of the first phase of the "Year of the Indian" project and hosted Florida Museum/RRC research projects in 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, and 2004; numerous public programs have been given on the island. The Useppa Island Historical Society provided assistance for Cuban archival research conducted by the RRC in 2004, with results being incorporated into updated exhibits.

Tampa Bay History Center (Tampa): The Florida Museum sent its traveling exhibit, "The Fishing Heritage of Gulf Coastal Florida" to TBHC free of charge.

Time Sifters Archaeology Society (Sarasota): Time Sifters members have participated in many of the activities at the Randell Research Center at Pineland; Florida Museum/RRC staff members have given several talks to the group.

Trail of the Lost Tribes (Gulf coastal Florida): The Network of the Trail of the Lost Tribes is a partnership between public and private entities that provides responsible interpretation of the archaeology, anthropology, and natural history of Florida's Gulf Coast. By means of a color brochure and a speaker series, the Trail brings interested visitors to archaeological sites and promotes the understanding of the past. Florida Museum archaeologist William Marquardt serves on the Trail advisory board, and both the Florida Museum in Gainesville and the Randell Research Center in Pineland are Trail designated sites.

University of North Carolina (Department of Geological Sciences) (Chapel Hill, NC): UNC's geochemist Donna Surge and Florida Museum's Karen Walker collaborate in developing geochemical methods that will identify signatures of paleoclimate in archaeological clam shells and fish otoliths. Their goal is to analyze shells and otoliths from Pineland and other sites in southwest Florida in order to reconstruct a human-climate history for the last two millennia.

Warm Mineral Springs Archaeological Society: WMSAS members have participated in several projects with the Randell Center and Florida Museum, the most recent being assisting Robert Patton with the Charlotte Harbor Mounds Survey Phase II project; several public talks have been given.