Happy Spring! All of us at Environmental Volunteers very much appreciate your support as volunteers, donors, and friends. We wanted to take a moment to describe our current efforts to deliver new environmental education initiatives to students.
Founded in 1972, the mission of Environmental Volunteers is to promote the understanding of and responsibility for the environment through hands-on science and nature education. Our programs grow students’ environmental awareness, connect all ages to the outdoors, and instill a desire to protect the Earth. To date, we have reached more than 460,000 children.
We have worked very hard during the past year to be innovative and flexible in our approach to program delivery by creating a wide variety of new programming that can accommodate the diverse needs of students, parents, teachers, and schools. These new programs include:
1. Virtual Synchronous Programs — Teachers in grades K-5 can choose from a selection of live, interactive virtual environmental science programs designed to support Next Generation Science Standard topics delivered remotely by our trained volunteers.
2. Asynchronous Programs — A selection of pre-recorded science and nature lessons and take-home activities teachers can select to fit their curriculum needs that do not require an outside instructor. These programs are also accessible directly to parents as well. We are also leading Sprout Up Explores, an engaging environmental education curriculum by College Students for K-4 students consisting of twice-weekly lessons with worksheets, activities, and experiments designed to be fun, engaging, and meaningful.
3. Walkable Field Trips — These small group trips are designed to help students get to know our local city parks and open space areas without having to get on a bus or other communal transportation. The trips are being offered to individual families and will be offered to schools when some in-person instruction resumes.
4. Nature Education Series and Open Space Discovery – We have a strong nature program series for all community members anticipating 1,200 attendees in monthly programs. And we have new open space discovery programs in the Baylands and Foothills Nature Preserve.
Thank you for catching up on our current programming. Please do not hesitate to contact us at Volunteer@environmentalvolunteers.org if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Environmental Volunteers