Eco-Ed students discover wild San Francisco

By Sharon Beals

An energetic and slightly raucous hike up the trail through the canyon was just what the classroom of fourth graders from Bayshore Elementary in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley neighborhood needed after their morning bus ride to Glen Park.

The air was fresh, newly green willows blazed, and Islais Creek was brimming. In no time Anthony DeCicco, Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Eco-Education organizer, leader, and magician, was demonstrating to half of these explorers how to net the aquatic life in its pools. GGBA volunteers handed out binoculars to the others, patiently demystified the art of focusing, and then led them off on a stop-and-start wander around the canyon to look, listen, and identify who was singing, flitting, or soaring.

This stellar day was living embodiment of what they had been learning through GGBA’s school-based Eco-Ed program about the habitat and health of their local watershed, from the trickle of its headwaters through its journey to the ocean.

Eco-Ed students collect aquatic life with nets / Photo by Sharon Beals
Examining the stream water they’ve collected / Photo by Sharon Beals
Another way to look at it / Photo by Sharon Beals
Look what’s in there! Photo by Sharon Beals

Each year, working with classroom teachers and dedicated GGBA volunteers, this program reaches over 650 third, fourth, and fifth graders in underserved public elementary schools in East Oakland, North Richmond/San Pablo and southeast San Francisco. In a curriculum that integrates STEM (science/technology/engineering/math) learning standards, students learn about and help restore local wildlife habitats. At the end of the school year, the children and their families are invited on a culminating field trip, usually to the ocean. (For their final trip, this particular class went to Alcatraz to view the nesting colonies of cormorants, gulls, egrets, and Pigeon Guillemots.)

Bayshore Elementary students view seabird colonies on Alcatraz / Photo by Anthony DeCicco

The curiosity and enthusiasm of the students for the life they observed under microscopes and through binoculars that day in March was contagious. For many of them, a day in the wilds of even an urban park was a rare experience.

The Eco-Education Program strives to improve the lives and learning of students from communities with limited access to environmental education, as well as few opportunities to spend time in nature. Within heavily industrialized communities stressed by limited resources and high crime rates, these trips offer children and family members opportunities to find a calming sanctuary within their nearby natural spaces.

Since its launch in 1999, GGBA’s Eco-Ed program has served over 20,000 children and family members, with the help of committed volunteers, teachers, and funders.

Up there! It’s a bird! Photo by Sharon Beals
So what was it that we just saw? / Photo by Sharon Beals

“I love kids! They keep me energized and hopeful for the future,” said DeCicco, who has worked with GGBA since 2006. “Working with so many children over the years has affirmed my belief that we are born to be loved and to give love. My passion is to share my deep respect and fascination for the natural world and that ‘humans are not the boss of the planet!’ We must empower children to believe that their actions can make a difference for a healthy environment and that they can teach other, especially adults, ways to live in an environmentally responsible manner.”

Eco-Ed volunteers are key to the program’s success. / Photo by Sharon Beals

Become an Eco-Ed volunteer! Helping introduce kids to nature on our field trips is an incredibly rewarding experience. We’ll hold trainings in September for the 2017-18 school year. This is a very flexible volunteer opportunity: Choose from schools in San Francisco, Oakland, or Richmond, and choose the dates you want to volunteer. It’s fine to volunteer on an occasional basis! For more info or to be notified of the training dates, email Anthony at adecicco@goldengatebirdalliance.org


Sharon Beals is a San Francisco-based fine art and documentary photographer. A member of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance Board of Directors, she is the author and photographer of Nests: Fifty Nests and the Birds that Built Them, her invitation to those who might never have picked up a pair of binoculars to learn about the lives of birds and their survival issues. View her work at http://www.sharonbeals.com.