Environmental justice analysis and reporting which may involve youth leadership development in the community. Participants engaged in interdisciplinary learning through workshops, hands-on, and collaborative learning methods that helped our youth gain insight in what is needed to create and maintain a Natural park. This was done within our Dream Big Youth Council program where youth leaders participated in weekly meetings. Discovering nature in action in the community through educational walks looking for flora (trees/plants) and fauna (animals/insects), and visits to local resources such as a community park, creek, zoo, science or nature center. Our youth and community members visited Ascot Hills Park and Native Plant Nursery. Our youth and community leaders got to visit Ascot Hills every Saturday to learn about habitat restoration and urban forestry. Youth engaged in educational hikes, learned new skills, planted trees, took care of the nursery, learned about invasive species, and pulled out weeds. They also got to learn about various Environmental Justice careers in the field and got connected to professionals in those fields. Youth also did a community event to pass out trees and taught them how to take care of them. Solution-based learning about the community’s connection to climate change and other environmental issues such as stormwater runoff, air quality, brownfields, land- use planning, urban heat island effect, groundwater supply, energy, and water efficiency.

Our youth also visited Flat Top Park 1040 Montecito Dr. LA, CA 90031. Our youth learned how to use safety equipment, they learned about native plants, they got exposed to new careers and trades in the Environmental Justice field. They also presented their workforce development pipeline experience in a community town hall and got to highlight all of the amazing work they did taking care of Flat Top Park for the past 5 weeks. They also learned about fire resiliency and how important it is to educate the hikers and community members to not plant invasive plant that could get the park on fire.

Curriculum based activities at the Community Home Base: Youth Leaders participated in weekly Dream Big Leadership program where they participated in weekly curriculum based session on Environmental Justice and leadership development. Preparing PARTICIPANTS for NATURAL AREA TRIPS. Our youth leaders participated in a training with Legacy LA staff and our partners North East Trees to prepare for camping in natural area trips.

Our youth learned about camping and hiking best practices through hands on activities. They also participated in an overnight camping trip to Castaic Lake in September 2023. This trip also prepared them for the Big Bear trip that we were able to take 45 youth to in November 2023.

Increasing Access to Outdoor Spaces and to increase access to outdoor recreation for underserved communities, particularly those who face barriers such as transportation, affordability, or lack of outdoor programming and provide participants with opportunities to engage in outdoor activities, learn outdoor skills, and understand the importance of outdoor experiences for mental and physical health. We accomplished this by tracking the number of individuals from targeted communities who access outdoor spaces through OEG and monitoring the consistency of participation in outdoor activities, such as the number of visits or sessions attended. We supported in Building Outdoor Skills and Knowledge by having open conversations with participants to assess what knowledge or skills they have gained.Participant Self-Reports: Using self-reporting tools to learn participants’ confidence in outdoor skills before and after the program.

In collaboration with North East trees, we were able to have a total of 3 cohorts of 10 youth participate in a six week Flat Top Fire Resilience Program. The youth in the program consisted of Middle School, High School and College students who were interested in learning more about environmental justice and careers within the field. Through this internship all 30 youth within the three cohorts participated in weekly Career Readiness workshops as well as learn first hand experience on what it takes to have a career in environmental stewardship. This included best practices in planting trees and native plants that can help keep our environment safe from fires. We also prepared youth in their career readiness by introducing them to folks in the environmental justice field. All students completed a brag sheet of their skills, created a resume, practiced elevator pitches, did a few interview practice runs, and attended a career day event. At the June townhall they will connect how the Natural Park could be a great way to establish career exploration for our community and even create workforce development opportunities. Some lessons learned is that we need to ensure that we identify resources to feed the youth so that they have the energy to sustain themselves.

We developed a new partnership with Community Nature Connection (CNC), a non profit organization dedicated to bringing unjustly oppressed communities into communion with the outdoors and nature. Legacy LA has collaborated with CNC as a part of their Transit to Trails program, where our youth got to visit spaces within the closest National Park to us, the Santa Monica Mountains. We are now collaborating with CNC to take our youth to Yosemite National Park, a much larger undertaking. Their staff has incredibly in-depth experience with National Parks, and can help guide and facilitate the planning of this undertaking. We look forward to helping our youth experience the wonders of the state they live in through this partnership. Similarly, we are looking forward to partnering with CNC to accomplish our much-anticipated Owens Valley trip.  

We have had a great experience with the Outdoor programs we have been able to conduct. We definitely want to highlight the importance of preparing youth for nature trips prior to having any actual field trips. This helped our youth feel confident and excited for future trips to come. We also learned that our youth are very interested in Environmental Justice careers so we ensured that the curriculum based activities conducted at our home base also highlighted various careers in the Environmental Justice Field.

One of the biggest lessons learned we had within this process is that t takes a full year to plan a Yosemite Trip. If we miss the planning period this puts us behind in meeting our grant deliverables. However, we wanted to ensure we build up the capacity of our staff and youth to ensure we have a safe Yosemite Trip. A lesson learned for us would have been to possibly reduce the amount of Yosemite trips we included and add additional trips that are easier to plan year round.