Fostering Stewardship: Leave no Trace Lessons, service learning projects Instruction in Science that connects Nature Experiences/NGSS Curriculum: Hike to El Polin Spring- Water Cycles, Muir Woods- impact of fire on forest cycles, SF Botanical Garden- photosynthesis/plant lifecycles. Healthy Lifestyles & Sounds Nutritional Habits: The inportance of nutrition in all day field trips, Recycling & Composting conversations during mealtimes

Earth Service Corp (ESC) at Martin Luther King Jr Middle School, the Naturalist was able to facilitate lessons that covered Environmental Climate Justice topics that related to their neighborhood, within the lessons embedding the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and various STEAM curriculum during the after school hours. Y Rangers- This is a summer day camp experience for youth to get outdoors, explore their local neighborhood, learn about their natural environment and to access National Parks in the Bay Area. The Bayview Hunters-Point visited places like Alcatraz, Presidio, Muir Woods, Muir Beach, Golden Gate Park, Candlestick Park, India Basin, Crane Cove and McClaren Park to name a few. Many of the campers have never seen Redwoods before and along with meeting these giants they participated in curriculum that YUSA provided to cover topics such as water cycle, basic geology, observing nature and the scientific method.

National Park Service: Our continued partnership with the National Park Service has allowed us to bring participants to multiple NPS Sites (Maritime Museum, Muir Woods, Presidio) free of cost, and have provided opportunities for youth to interact with Park Rangers. NPS is not currently offering service learning opportunities, so we are seeking additional partnerships to build our environmental stewardship opportunities throughout the year. Additionally, we learned that there are bus requirements to go to Muir Woods, which required our team to be creative about transportation solutions.

No new partnerships. For Y Rangers, maintaining a strong connection and partnership with National Park Services, Presidio Trust and Parks Conservancy. This past summer, we were able to execute intentional camper and ranger interactions by coordinating National Park visits with Ranger-lead activities with campers. This deemed to be very successful as Rangers were engaging with the campers with site specific lessons. In addition to Ranger-lead activities, this provided an added experience for Naturalist In Training participants to shadow and learn facilitation techniques from Rangers during their in-field hours.

One of our largest successes in this program has been the effort of ensuring that there are components of outdoor programming that include the whole family unit/community. Our family park days and family camps are very well attended and have gotten very positive response from the participants. YRangers, our summer day camp program, is also very popular, and the youth are having great experiences in nature. During Summer 2023, one of the youth participants was at Muir Woods and said to a staff member "You know, I'm a city kid, but this is pretty cool". One of our biggest challenges and largest barriers to this program has been that the Community Liasion role has been, and continues to be vacant. We are working to find ways to pair this role with more hours and similar work to create a full time position with benefits, but has prevented the operation of YSC & ESC. Currently, we are working with this team to see if we can get operational by March 2024. Additionally, we are working on expanding the locations for our field trips, as the YMCA is no longer operating out of the Point Bonita YMCA in Sausalito. However, youth and families are showing positive response to our YMCA site in La Honda, as well as other camping and outdoor exploration opportunities. It would be interesting to see what additional opportunities exist within the State of CA Park System to further enhance program offerings if/when unforseen circumstances arise.

Y Rangers- Campers enjoyed going to the National Parks but what was a huge success was exploring the green spaces within their neighborhoods. This was extremely impactful as they are able to better access these spaces as opposed to having the resources to go to NPS parks or State Parks which are difficult to get to. During the summer, there were areas of improvement where communication of information needed to be addressed and clarified. Again, providing clear guidelines in a revised Letter of Agreement was created to ensure that all parties understand each of the roles that makes up this program. A challenge was also that the cohorts were mixed-age where it was difficult for admin to properly plan out age-appropriate activities for a wide range of ages. NIT and BOLD & GOLD- Though both summer teen programs were an overall success, we found that it was a challenge to recruit. We now recognize that we need to invest additional time to reach out to the community for ample sign-up.