The San Francisco Bay Area has an extensive array of programming to support little people with big curiosities.
The East Bay Regional Park District is not just the nation's largest and oldest regional park district. It also has what’s likely the largest corps of professional naturalists of any local park agency. For generations of kids, that's meant accessible opportunities for hiking, camping, getting dirty, and--most important--discovering the outdoors and getting to know our plant and animal neighbors.
For more than thirty years, volunteers have been sharing their love of nature with children through the Terwilliger Nature Guide program. Named for renowned nature educator Elizabeth Terwilliger, the program is now part of the larger efforts of the San Rafael nonprofit known as WildCare. Anyone can become a nature guide after completing a training session. The next session will take place on August 14.
You might think that 5-year-old Rosa might be hesitant to return to her teacher after sneaking off to smear gray mud all over her face and arms. Instead, she runs right up to teacher Chris Giorni with a smile on her round, blackened face....
A world awaits discovery under almost any humble log in winter, whether it’s in your backyard or deep in the woods. Lift that log and make some new discoveries. Just be sure to put that log back carefully...
On Veteran's Day, a day off when lots of kids might be home watching TV or playing video games, fourth and fifth graders from Bahia Vista Elementary School in San Rafael's Canal district guided parents and friends through the four distinct bird habitats of Pickleweed Park and explained what they had learned about each habitat and its particular bird life.
As summer turns to fall, thousands of shorebirds return to the shoreline and mudflats of San Francisco Bay, either for a pit stop on their way south or to stay for the winter. Sometimes many different kinds gather in one place. How can you tell them apart?
The BAWT mobiles are in town, and they mean serious wilderness business. With the help of City Car Share and the local nonprofit Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT), Bay Area youth organizations can now reserve vans to transport children for field trips and campouts.
While living dinosaurs are nowhere to be found in California these days, you can see recognizable descendants of plants that lived with them--right here in the modern Bay Area.
When teacher Linda Cover walks into a classroom, she steps onto fertile soil, knowing that her students have a cumulative knowledge of their watershed. As a Spectra Arts teacher with the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz, she works with kids … Read more
Too much homework? Bully picking on you at school? Perhaps not, but have you stopped to wonder if your children are yearning for a breath of fresh air? Sometimes, even the ol’ backyard isn’t enough backcountry for a cooped-up kid, … Read more
Independent, nonprofit environmental journalism connecting people with nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
