Year: 2020

Even though we can’t go to the ocean, we can still have a beach day! KIDS for the BAY Program Manager/Instructor Sienna Kuykendall created an exciting virtual Field Trip to Muir Beach for her third through fifth grade special education students at Manzanita Community School in Oakland.

Schools are unfortunately closed across the world, but many students in the San Francisco Bay Area are ending the school year with a much stronger environmental ethic! KIDS for the BAY partnered with local elementary schools in September to deliver environmental science education programs.

Fifth grade students at Gregory Gardens Elementary School in Pleasant Hill explored healthy and unhealthy elements of their local environment with KIDS for the BAY (KftB) in their Watershed Action Program (WAP) and were eager to take action to make their own watershed healthier for all.

“Is there really a shed in your backyard that’s full of water?!” KIDS for the BAY Instructor, Ms. Sienna asked students at Manzanita Community School. “No!” exclaimed the students. Mr. Wallace’s third grade class was learning about the San Francisco Bay watershed, the complex and layered environment that they live in, but most students hadn’t ever heard the word ‘watershed’ before this lesson.

Kaelin, a third grader in Berkeley, couldn’t believe her ears when she learned that over seven trillion pieces of microplastic enter the San Francisco bay every year! She had just learned that pollution enters the bay through storm drains and the sewer system, but it was hard for her to wrap her mind around how much it is! She knew she had to do something — and she wasn’t alone.