Crosbie Morrison Building

 

The Environment Education Centre at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra has been officially named the Crosbie Morrison Building, to honour Philip Crosbie Morrison's enormous contribution to natural history education. The building was opened by the Hon Ros Kelly, Minister for the Environment, at a ceremony at the Gardens on 1 September 1992. Lucy Crosbie Morrison, the wife of the late Philip, was a special guest at the ceremony.

The Centre is used to provide classroom facilities for many of the 10,000 students who visit the Gardens each year and is a venue for community groups with an interest in Australia's natural history. A small and a large indoor classroom are complemented by a small outdoor amphitheatre facing a lawn area and pools where aquatic biology can be studied.

The Friends of the ANBG, established only two years earlier, contributed funds to the landscaping of the Crosbie Morrison Building. Their contribution was marked with a small plaque.

The original plaque included a photograph of Crosbie Morrison smoking his landmark pipe. Presure from the anti-smoking loby saw the plaque replaced with a non-pipe-smoking photo in view of the role of the Centre as a childrens' educational facility.

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