The first Educational Goal was accomplished (Instruction in arts, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that connects the nature experiences, or environmental stewardship.). We tailored our youth nature clubs curriculum on plants, seeds, birds, bugs, soil, insects, butterflies, flowers and native pollinators to enable age-appropriate nature experiences with art, science and environmental stewardship. We used mathematics and technology to facilitate the lesson plans with microscopes, ipads, and textbooks. We also incorporated environmental stewardship in ALL of our field trips.

Outward Bound Adventures (OBA) designs all nature destination activities to cultivate environmental stewardship through three core principles: awareness, empowerment, and commitment. These activities incorporate OBA’s seven areas of focus: leadership development, eco-literacy, cultural literacy, Leave No Trace ethics, physical challenge, careers in conservation, and community building. This comprehensive approach enables underserved youth to: (1) form meaningful connections to nature, fostering self-awareness, self-worth, and a passion for further exploration and education; (2) enhance problem-solving and leadership abilities, promoting a sense of self-mastery; (3) recognize the importance of their cultural and ethnic heritage, including their role in environmental stewardship; and (4) appreciate the value of cooperation and interdependence within their communities and the natural world. These objectives will be measured with our pre- and post-assessments.

RocEra partnership for field trips: tour 5 chosen nature trips were a huge hit with the kids in this group. We learned to tailor the age group of each of the trips more tightly than we had originally expected. For example, we found it best to tailor each trip to ONE of these three age groups: kids 3-6; kids 7-12; teens 13+ and not mix all the ages groups together in one trip. 

RocEra and Children Mending Hearts partnerships for Youth Nature Club meetings: These partnerships were very good and our regular youth nature club meetings were much more successful than we had anticipated and the meetings became more and more popular as time went on, with many kids asking if we could come back sooner! We learned that afterschool meetings every week were better for our families than monthly saturday nature club meetings, so we amended our schedule to accomodate this. We also learned that summer programming was virtually impossible, as kids had camps and summer programs that kept them from coming to any of our nature club meetings. In the future, should we do nature clubs in the summer, we would structure it like a Nature Camp and run it for a full week for kids in the community. 

Watts Empowerment Center partnership for our Unity Days: This partnership helped make our Unity days a success. The WEC is located next to our garden and we learned that we could attract a larger crowd of kids of all ages to our gardens on the Unity Days. We learned that the best Unity days in our garden were not on weekends, as we had done in the past, but at afterschool times for 2 hours before dinner time.

Outward Bound Adventures (OBA) has strengthened its South Los Angeles programs by appointing a full-time Program Coordinator from the local community, whose leadership has been essential in fostering trust with youth, guiding trips, and building community relationships. Together with a dedicated South LA Program Coordinator, this role has been pivotal in establishing partnerships with who will be the partners going forward. WEC has had difficulty producing the number of youth required for our trips, however in order to fulfill our mission and accomplish our goal to serve this population we will continue to work with Watts Empowerment Center and as well as expand our reach by incorporating partnerships with Children’s Institute and GRYD Prevention. GRYD will be our new homebase. These collaborations allow us to engage a larger number of youth from the same population and same area, ensuring we maximize the grant’s impact.

Outward Bound Adventures (OBA) has strengthened its South Los Angeles programs by appointing a full-time Program Coordinator from the local community, whose leadership has been essential in fostering trust with youth, guiding trips, and building community relationships. Together with a dedicated South LA Program Coordinator, this role has been pivotal in establishing partnerships with who will be the partners going forward. These efforts underscore the importance of localized staffing and strong partnerships in ensuring consistent participant engagement, resilience, and long-term success.