All Ventana Wildlife Society program content creation is guided by best practices in Environmental and Outdoor Education (EOE), and our Instructors are talented at adjusting as needed to be culturally sensitive and relevant for our participants. Ventana Wildlife Society and The Bird School Project (BSP) collaborate closely on a weekly basis to co-lead monthly Community Environmental Club meetings and Natural Area Trips both after school and on weekends.

During the school day, BSP provides a schoolyard program consisting of four visits that cover Birding Basics, Bird Language and Behavior, Biodiversity in Birds, and Community Science. The series is offered multiple times during the year and BSP works closely with the science teachers at LPMS to align with recently adopted science and social-emotional learning standards.

Lessons support standards by focusing on relevant disciplinary core ideas at each grade band, uplifting the importance of biodiversity and examples of evolutionary biology in the bird community. These threads are continued into the other aspects of the program, both in the community and on natural area trips.

Community Environmental Club monthly meetings included educational activities that foster stewardship of the environment. Throughout the first year, we mentored 2 high school seniors who were involved in helping to plan and lead our monthly community club meetings and all off-site family field trips. For example, the teen leaders created a presentation with photos on how they only buy second hand for certain clothing items, and lead a discussion about purchasing gently used rather than new items. Meetings also included various hand-on eco-projects that families could then do at home, such as creating an ecosystem in a jar, and eco-friendly holiday gifts.

Our Natural Area Trips, which include weekly youth classes as well as family programs, foster stewardship of the environment with activities such as responsible bird and wildlife observation; water testing; tide pooling; recycling art; habitat mapping and learning Leave No Trace and other outdoor practices designed to encourage respect for the environment.

Menu planning for outings focused on including nutritious options, and outdoor activities such as hiking, walking and kicking a soccer ball around encouraged fun and physical activity, modeling a healthy lifestyle. Pre and post-surveys were given to participants as a way to document their connection with the outdoors.

Results showed that both adults and youth felt more comfortable returning to natural areas visited on their own with their families. Free transportation and bilingual programming were two aspects of our program that were mentioned as being the most supportive factors.

All VWS curriculum is guided by best practices in Environmental &Outdoor Education, and instructors adjust as needed to be culturally sensitive and relevant for our participants. The schoolyard program series, offered multiple times during the year, works closely with teachers to align with science standards. Lessons focus on relevant disciplinary core ideas, uplifting the importance of biodiversity and examples of evolutionary biology in the bird community. These threads are continued into the rest of the program. Off-site programs included educational activities that foster environmental stewardship, and high school seniors were involved in helping to plan and lead trips. Weekly youth classes and family programs, included responsible bird and wildlife observation; water testing; tide pooling; and recycled art. Camp menus included nutritious options, and outdoor activities such as hiking, walking and kicking a soccer ball encouraged physical activity, modeling a healthy lifestyle.

La Paz Middle School (LPMS): LPMS provides space for our Activities in the Community and is the meeting location for Nature Area Trips. We collaborate heavily with LPMS teachers and parents to help recruit program participants. Mr. Waddington is a science teacher, Science Department co-chair, and Garden Club advisor at the school - he has been supporting our clubs since the beginning and allows his classroom to be used on a weekly basis. He is our middle man with the front office and has been tremendous help! Mr. Chavez works in the front office and is a liaison for migrant Spanish-speaking parents. He has allowed us to virtually present during his weekly updates to parents.

The Bird School Project (BSP): In addition to BSP’s schoolyard program, BSP assists VWS in coordinating a monthly on-site community club for the neighboring families of La Paz Middle School (LPMS) as well as to facilitate weekly off-site nature classes throughout the school year. BSP has also assisted in recruiting their previous students to our Nature Area Trips. Previous LPMS students, who are now in high school or graduated, attended our overnight Family Camp out this year. Early in the program, despite the partnership we have with Bird School Project and La Paz Middle School – unless folks were directly involved with our programs many of the school staff didn’t really know who we were. That has been changing over the past year through our continued efforts to reach out directly to individual teachers, and that effort has paid off. This fall we were notified that the Community Nature Club will be highlighted in the next school yearbook! State Parks and the State Coastal Conservancy are partnering with us to provide facilities for overnight camping. To better implement the overnight components of our programming, we are working with State Parks and the State Coastal Conservancy to improve the facilities at Andrew Molera State Park to be known as S’MORE – Space for Meaningful Outdoor Recreation and Education.

The S’MORE site improvements establish an ideal location for programming with easy beach access and include the following:

• Areas for Tents
• ADA Parking
• Drop-off Welcoming Area
• Picnic Shelter With Rustic Kitchen + Picnic Tables
• Outdoor Grill
• North & South Fire Rings
• Native Turf Play Area
• Wayfinding and Interpretive Signage
• Chemical Toilets
• River Trail

We continue to strengthen our partnership with La Paz Middle School, recently receiving recognition at the school’s open house, and also in the 2023-2024 yearbook. We participated in the school's Career Day and continue to look for opportunities to support school events and build relationships. Our relationship with the local commuity is richer, with more youth engaging their family in club meetings and outings, resulting in more community investment of time and ownership of the program. Recently, families took charge of planning a group outing to Big Sur – deciding not only when they wanted to go, but also what activities they preferred to include. They discussed how to recruit more families, and advocated for changing our Facebook Group name to Spanish to better reach the community - we made this change immediately and have already seen an increase in participation. Lastly, one of our interns recently graduated high school but will continue with us through her first college semester.

A challenge we faced with our Community Nature Club was not having regular attendance. We began to communicate reminders to interested community members leading up to each meeting. We noticed families wouldn’t remember the community club dates so we call them the week of and then send a text reminder the day of. We also began incorporating a raffle, so each time a family comes they are entered for an end of the year prize they can use to plan their own family outdoors trip. We also created a Facebook Group to keep all members involved and updated. Finding the right time and day for the community club meeting times for a majority of families to attend was tricky at first, but once we spoke to different teachers and administrators at La Paz Middle School regarding the best time to connect with families, they suggested a later time in the evening. We also hosted a community club meeting with a special Birds of Prey event and 112 participants attended, including people from outside our area of interest, and school administrators who aren’t typically involved also attended the event. This was a great way to generate interest more broadly in the program. Using a reward system with wood cookie name tags in our weekly youth nature class has helped group management tremendously. Each participant gets a wood cookie name tag necklace and they can earn pony beads to decorate it. If a student picks up trash without being told, helps others, or follows directions well, they can earn a bead. The students love to see not only how many beads they can earn, but also see how many different colors they can collect. Early on, we noticed that although families expressed interest in attending Community Nature Club meetings our attendance was lower than expected. We found that when we called or texted families to remind them about club meetings, they were thankful for the reminder and more likely to attend.

Looking for opportunities to stay involved with the school and community has been important in helping us recruit participants outside of the student population at La Paz Middle School. Researching monthly resources and events in the community has really helped. One lesson learned was that slight adjustments need to be made for Nature Mentors depending on their age and other factors. Over the course of the year we have had two younger mentors who have struggled with the workload that previous mentors who were only a year or so older were able to handle. More individualized experiences will be cultivated as we move forward.

Developing a strong partnership to a science teacher at La Paz Middle School has helped us tremendously in recruiting students, having an additional location to work with youth onsite (in their classroom), and submitting facility requests to use the larger school multipurpose room for our monthly community club meetings. Also – as a year-round program, it is important for us to recognize that many school staff are absent during the summer months, roles are reassigned and facilities may be less available than during the school year. Back up plans are a must – such as identification of alternative spaces within the community that can be utilized if school facilities are not available. Evaluation is important, and we collect pre/post surveys, however we also use informal techniques, like questions and counting ‘show of hands’. This is an easy way to collect information as surveys can sometimes be viewed as a “test” by participants or staff may forget to administer them.