The rumble of an approaching school bus temporarily disturbs the serenity of a hollow in Franklin Canyon Park—an oasis in the center of bustling, noisy Los Angeles. The bus lets out 60 third graders from Gardena Elementary School. For many of them, their participation in the Outreach Discovery Program with Children’s Nature Institute (CNI) is their first encounter with the wilderness, away from their neighborhoods of concrete. The children have already bonded with the Institute’s Environmental Educators who previously brought CNI’s WonderMobile to their school to prepare them for this field trip. Over the course of the morning, they will build on the WonderMobile workshop—a focused, hands-on, multi-sensory lesson that incorporates natural artifacts, live animals, and science concepts—with a walk on park trails. During the walk the children will closely examine plants, observe animals, and hear the sounds of wildlife in their natural habitat. After the field trip, a CNI educator will return to the school and guide students to look at their surroundings with new eyes and new knowledge to uncover that nature can be found everywhere, even in the most urban setting—an Urban Nature Hunt!
This group of 60 is among the 13,000 young, underprivileged schoolchildren CNI reaches with its Outreach Discovery Program each year. The Institute’s other programs include Tykes on Trails (workshops for children aged two through four and their parents), and a variety of fee-based nature programming and community events which enable CNI to provide its Outreach Discovery Program completely free of charge to underserved public schools. In 2009, Norris Foundation funds went to the Outreach Discovery Program.