This week kicks off the first of our California Association of Environmental & Outdoor Education (AEOE) Member features on our blog with Exploring New Horizons! AEOE’s mission is “to advance the impact of environmental and outdoor education in California.”
Exploring New Horizons is an outdoor education program that was founded as a nonprofit in 1979. Its mission is to empower students, build environmental literacy, and strengthen school communities through residential and environmental education.
As an organizational member of AEOE, and a partner on the California Environmental Literacy Initiative (CAELI) Community-Based Partner Hub, Exploring New Horizons has been a leader in providing environmental literacy and education programs to students throughout the Monterey Bay and San Francisco areas. Nonprofit organizations such as Exploring New Horizons rely on the support of their community to provide high-quality and affordable educational programs that meet NGSS and common core standards.
Read more about Exploring New Horizons here!
Watch the interview highlight with Jacob Sackin, Executive Director of Exploring New Horizon’s below:
If you are a teacher, parent, or guardian looking to get involved with an outdoor education program like Exploring New Horizons, visit the CAELI Community-Based Partner Hub and find partners and programs near you: CAELI Community Based Partner Hub
Philanthropic support is also a great way to get involved with nonprofits like ENH, so if you are an individual donor or a local foundation or corporation interested in funding opportunities, please visit: Support Exploring New Horizons!
Relevant Links
Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education | California AEOE
As the professional association for environmental and outdoor education in California, AEOE provides programs and practitioners with the tools, resources, and expertise to ensure that future generations are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and experiences necessary to develop lifelong connections to the natural world and the commitment to sustain it.
California Environmental Literacy Initiative (CAELI)
CAELI, led by Ten Strands, works statewide with guidance from a leadership council to create systems change in support of environmental literacy with a focus on access, equity, and cultural relevance for all students.
Environmental Education Equity | Exploring New Horizons
Exploring New Horizons seeks support to serve more lower-income schools, to continue providing affordable rates and scholarships to participating schools, and to provide professional learning for our staff on equity, inclusion, and culturally responsive pedagogy.
Loma Mar Program | Exploring New Horizons
Exploring New Horizons Outdoor Schools at Loma Mar takes a hands-on, experiential approach to science education, and focuses on adventure, self-discovery, and environmental stewardship. Located in the Pescadero Creek watershed near Memorial and Pescadero Creek County Parks, students learn about how they are connected to the natural world while exploring the Oak and Redwood Forest. Each evening activity finishes with songs and stories around the campfire.
Pigeon Point Program | Exploring New Horizons
Exploring New Horizons Outdoor Schools at Pigeon Point is based at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse State Historic Park with accommodations provided by Hostelling International. Pigeon Point is located on the Pacific Ocean, 50 miles south of San Francisco, and 20 miles north of Santa Cruz. The Pigeon Point program offers a unique opportunity for students to learn more about themselves as well as the natural world that surrounds them.
Sempervirens Program | Exploring New Horizons
Exploring New Horizons Outdoor Schools at Sempervirens takes a hands-on, experiential approach to science education, and focuses on adventure, self-discovery, and environmental stewardship. Students explore the coastal ecosystems, the Oak, Madrone, and Redwood Forest, and each evening activity finishes with songs and stories around the campfire.
Ten Strands weaves stakeholders and strategies together into strong, focused education partnerships, with the goal of raising environmental literacy by providing high-quality environment-based learning and hands-on education to all California K–12 students. Ten Strands acts as an incubator and a catalyst to create collaborations, build capacity, and transform systems to increase their impact and sustainability.
News and Events
CLIC Project-Climate Change & History
Apr. 28, 2021 SF Bay Area
Join to access resources for in-person and remote teaching and learning, network with grade-level teachers from in the Bay Area and earn a CEU for attendance at all 4 sessions. Free for educators.
Supporting Student Resilience by Using Outdoor Spaces for Learning and Play
Apr. 28, 2021 California Department of Education
In this two-part webinar series, the founding partners of the National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative will share resources and ideas related to the benefits of using the abundant fresh air and access to nature to reduce virus transmission and improve students’ physical and mental health and well-being, learning, and play during the pandemic and beyond.
Assessing Connecting to Nature
Apr. 29, 2021 AEOE
Join for a 2-hour workshop diving into the Practitioner’s Guide to Assessing Connection to Nature, a new guidebook for helping you measure this elusive concept with young children, teenagers, or adults.
For girls, learning science outside linked to better grades, knowledge
Apr. 06, 2021 Science X
In a new study, North Carolina State University researchers found that an outdoor science program was linked to higher average science grades and an increase in a measure of science knowledge for a group of fifth grade girls in North Carolina.
Passing the Clean School Bus Act can help protect our children’s health and our planet
Apr. 16, 2021 The Hill
Every day, 26 million children ride on school buses. The central promise of our busing system is simple: Your children will have a free and safe ride to school. But that promise comes with a significant caveat.
Whatever Climate Change Does to the World, Cities Will Be Hit Hardest
Apr. 19, 2021 Bloomberg Green
More than half of humanity is crowded together in cities. That’s about 4 billion people living on top of one another, working, commuting, polluting, and figuring out how to survive. And that proportion will only rise…
It’s time to collaborate on climate and economic justice solutions
Apr. 19, 2021 GreenBiz
Air pollution has grave consequences — the World Health Organization estimates it kills 7 million people a year. Indeed, recent research suggests closer to 9 million people died from exposure to air pollution…
Humans haven’t always wrecked the environment
Apr. 19, 2021 Popular Science
It’s only been in the last few hundred years that we’ve started destroying land.
Why Schools Should Be the Center of a Green New Deal
Apr. 19, 2021 Gizmodo
One of the main things Terriq Thompson remembers about Benjamin Franklin High School, where he graduated in 2019, is that it was hot…
Earth Day 2021: Moms become climate activists as they worry about the Earth their kids will inherit
Apr. 20, 2021 GMA
Brooke Petry is a self-described introvert who says she never imagined herself on the front lines of tackling the global crisis of climate change.
