Countywide : Shell Island Facility to Be Back Bay’s ‘Classroom’

An amphitheater designed to be an outdoor classroom opened Thursday for visitors to Newport Beach’s Back Bay, the Southland’s largest marine estuary.

The new Shell Island Amphitheatre, with benches, a concrete-block shed and fire ring, will help focus attention on Back Bay resources that elude drivers whizzing by on nearby Jamboree Road, said Pam Johnson, manager of the Orange County Department of Education’s “Inside the Outdoors” program.

Shell Island, the byproduct of decades of dredging the upper bay to keep the channel navigable, is owned by the state and serves as Fish and Game Department’s outpost on the bay. From there, state officials monitor the area’s wildlife, including endangered species.

Shell Island “kind of looks like a wasteland if you just look down at it from outside,” Johnson said. “I think a lot of people don’t even know it’s here, so that’s where this will help.”

Along with the amphitheater, the complex includes a greenhouse, perimeter trail and a Gabrielino Indian wickiup--a replica of the thatched lodges used by the area’s first known residents 8,000 years ago and reconstructed on the island by their descendants.

The new facilities, besides serving as daytime classrooms for school and club field trips, will be used as headquarters for volunteer cleanup events, canoe trips and other evening events such as campfire programs.

“What do people remember about a camping experience? The campfire,” said John Scholl, a wildlife naturalist with the Fish and Game Department. “That begins to build a sense of community.”

For information about Shell Island outdoor programs, call (714) 640-6746.