The Blue Path to Florida's Water Future

The Blue Path

What is the Blue Path?

The writer, business journalist and environmental historian Cynthia Barnett coined the term “The Blue Path” to describe the water programs of Florida’s Eden. These programs are designed to educate us about our water and to inspire us to work together to find creative solutions for Florida’s water problems. But The Blue Path is much more than a group of programs.

The Blue Path is respect for freshwater in its natural environment that provides the clean drinking water we need to survive.

The Blue Path is the inspiration we find at a cold spring on a hot day and the innovation that sparks new ways to live with water. It’s the acknowledgement that healthy ecosystems are essential for a prosperous new blue-green economy.

It’s the time we take to educate ourselves and our children about water, and the efforts we make to preserve water resources for the future. It’s the realization that we have responsibilities to act in ways that benefit others, not just ourselves.

It’s the creative impulse that drives us to take a photograph, paint a picture, weave a story, or sing a song about our water. It’s collaboration, imagination, communication, and rejuvenation.

As you explore this website, you’ll find many different ways to step onto The Blue Path. We invite you to pick the activity that calls to you, and join us!

The Blue Path in the media: view current and archived news about The Blue Path.

Travels on The Blue Path

Travels on the Blue Path, our exhibition about finding new ways to live with Florida’s water, is now on view 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday in the ground floor hallway on the east side of the Seagle Building, 408 West University Avenue, Gainesville.

Illustrated with the work of area artists and supported by solid science, Travels explores Florida’s water history, demonstrates our present water problems, and offers ideas for technological, ethical, and civic solutions to those problems.

Click THE EXHIBIT, above, for more information. Visit and be inspired!

Florida Water Sins

There are some basic issues that are preventing our water problems from being solved; we call them the "Florida Water Sins." To read about them, click on GET INVOLVED, above.

Our Springs: The Real Fountains of Youth

The 500th anniversary of Ponce de Leon's landing on Florida's coast has inspired a flurry of artistic and literary activity. Check these out!

Our friend Mallory O'Connor has organized an exhibition called The Quest for the Fountain of Youth in Florida History, Mythology, and Art.The exhibition is on view through June 22, 2013, at the Thomas Center Galleries in Gainesville.

Our friends John Moran, Lesley Gamble, and Rick Kilby are the people behind the exhibitions Springs Eternal: Florida's Fragile Fountains of Youth and Finding the Fountain of Youth: Discovering Florida's Magical Waters, on view through December 15 at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

Lesley Gamble is the person responsible for the striking Springs Eternal Project website that blends art, literature, science, and narrative descriptions of some of our favorite springs in a way that's sure to make you want to get outdoors and go exploring. Book lovers won't want to miss Cynthia Barnett's Literary Timeline on the Art, Film, Literature and Culture page (scroll down and click on the tab). Art and photography lovers will find plenty of amazing images to admire throughout the website.

Lesley Gamble is also the person responsible for the Urban Aquifer part of the Springs Eternal Project, in which buses wrapped with images of our springs traverse routes above ground the same way that the Floridan Aquifer traverses its underground routes.

Rick Kilby's Finding the Fountain of Youth is not only an exhibition, but also a book newly published by the University Press of Florida!

You can follow the Springs Eternal Project and Finding Florida's Fountain of Youth on Facebook. Happy browsing!

About Us

Florida’s Eden is an educational 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We are working to build a prosperous economy and a sustainable environmental future for North Florida through a combination of place-based education, creativity, innovation, and appreciation of our unique environment—including the greatest number of freshwater springs in the world.

The first ecosystem study ever done was directed by Howard T. Odum at Silver Springs in the 1950s, so it is fitting that the newly formed Florida Springs Institute bears Odum’s name. Dr. Robert Knight, one of Odum’s students, directs the Institute that provides skilled scientific research, a clearinghouse for information, and an independent advocate voice for Florida’s waters.

At Fort White Middle and High Schools in Columbia County, Florida’s Eden helped develop and provides support for the Ichetucknee Classroom, a place-based educational program that uses Ichetucknee Springs State Park as an outdoor classroom for students in mathematics, science, English, and the arts. Our long-term goal is to replicate the Ichetucknee Classroom Model statewide and nationally.

Primavera is a springtime cultural celebration that is designed to put Gainesville and Alachua County on the national and international map as a destination hub for Florida’s springs region. If your organization is planning water-related events for the period between Spring Equinox and Earth Day (March 20-April 22) 2013, please let us know if you would like us to list your events on the Primavera web site.

Contribute

We are actively raising money to create clones of our current exhibition, Travels on the Blue Path, that can be placed throughout North and Central Florida to anchor local public programs and discussions about our water. If you would like to help us with this effort. Our online payment system will be active soon. To donate now, please call Lucinda Merritt at 386-454-0415.