Working with Your Local ADA Office Carolann Baldyga is the director of education at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Coral Gables, Florida. Her responsibilities include interpretation of living collections, school visits, inservice workshops for teachers, adult education programs, college and university courses, interns, volunteers, and the garden's tram and walking tours. Our Visitors Visitors come to Fairchild Tropical Garden because they want to see a tropical environment.
Most visitors know little about the tropics but are curious.
Many classroom teachers are limited to showing students textbooks that picture maple trees and a diagram meant to explain the four seasons. The garden's 83 acres immerse visitors of all ages in the amazing variety of plants growing in the subtropics and the tropics, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Doing this, I have found is partly a matter of learning how to change what we do and the way we do it. Hurricane Andrew caused vast damage when it went through southern Florida in August 1992. The recovery process at the garden was greatly aided by thousands of volunteers, many of whom had suffered severe personal losses themselves.