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A forty-year outdoor educator, a bill headed to the California Senate, and what it takes to get people who disagree about almost everything to agree on kids. I had the unique opportunity in 2021 to conduct research along Cal Poly Humboldt University evaluating the efficacy of field trips to California State Parks. When I started this research, I went in expecting one result and found another. Scott leading a field trip at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve I thought kids woul

What a sea otter's body can teach us about the true cost of getting too close — and why one Central Coast scientist has spent ten years trying to change how we love wild things. Shamu at Seaworld in San Diego circa 1994 I was maybe five. Shirtless, plastered against the glass of the Shamu tank at SeaWorld, wanting more than anything to be in that water. To ride the orca. To feel it launch me into the air. I didn't have a word yet for how dangerous that closeness actually was.

Julianna Acuña on a childhood dolphin encounter, building a marine science career from the Arizona desert, and what it actually takes to change how people treat wildlife Right after I graduated college, I went for a swim at Crystal Cove State Beach in Orange County. Past the break, a pod of dolphins came close enough that I could see them underwater when I opened my eyes. Close enough to hear them talking to each other. I still think about that swim more than almost anything

When I was a kid, the adult I most wanted to grow up to be wasn't a doctor or an astronaut. He was my outdoor educator — a guy who'd been a dog-sledding instructor in Canada, sailed around the world, led kayaking trips across Southeast Asia. I didn't want his job. I wanted his lifestyle. Aaron Haiman holding his binoculars looking into the trees for birds Aaron Haiman had a version of that same moment, just with birds instead of boats. He was maybe six years old, wandering th

A rescued vulture, a childhood spent hiding half his identity, and thirty years at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance — on what it actually takes to earn trust from the animals, and people, who don't meet you halfway. Clarence didn't like most people. A Cinereous Vulture perched on a stump He was a Cinereous Vulture — the largest vulture species in Europe and Asia — and when Marco Wendt met him, Marco was sixteen, working his first summer job at what was then called the Wild Ani

What twenty-seven years in early childhood education taught Amy Reyes-Hauff about nature and calm Scott Shepherd with a group of 1st Graders at Cuyamaca Rancho State Parks When I taught third grade, I built a unit around one question: what does it mean to be a wolf pack? We'd go outside, spread out across the field, and howl to call each other back together. It was our version of a safe word — a way for eight-year-olds to regroup once the world outside four walls had scattere

A bilingual environmental educator on reclaiming the language he almost lost When I was a kid, I was jealous of my cousins. My godmother, Graciella, was from Guadalajara. When she and my aunt and my cousins were together, the room filled with Spanish — fast, warm, completely foreign to me, and something I wanted in on so badly I could feel it. Then, by the time my cousin Jessica turned five, it stopped. My aunt had heard that raising a bilingual child could hurt her reading,

And what sensory processing taught me about teaching my own classroom I have ADHD. I didn't get real language for what that meant until I became a teacher myself. What changed things wasn't a diagnosis, mine or anyone else's. It was watching my own classroom. I started building in small accommodations for the handful of students with documented sensory processing needs — timers, visual reminders, nonverbal cues, regular time outside built into the day instead of treated as a

Building Careers in Conservation for Young Adults with Disabilities | Susie Schroer, AmeriCorps YES Initiative A little over a year ago I went from someone who surfed, climbed, and hiked without a second thought to someone who couldn't walk to the mailbox without stopping to rest. An invasive surgery. Diverticulitis had done enough damage that a section of my intestine had to come out. I've written about the lead-up to that surgery before — the decade of stress-related illnes

What a Himalayan concept, a phone ban in Thailand, and a rain-soaked rafting trip taught me about designing outdoor programs that actually meet people where they are Ghar Se Bhago. It means run away from home. And in the Himalayan tradition, it's not a flight from something — it's a call toward something. The discomfort of the unfamiliar. The growth that waits just outside your front door. The person you become when you go somewhere you've never been. Krishna Patel found that

The beach where I learned to surf is closed. Beaches Closed in Imperial Beach California due to sewage. Not occasionally. Not seasonally. Up to three hundred days a year, Imperial Beach — the southwestern-most beach community in the United States, four miles from the Mexican border — is posted with signs that say the water is unsafe for swimming. The waves are still there. The sand is still there. The people who grew up on that beach, who learned to read the ocean there, who

Alex Terry's father has been blind most of his life. He couldn't drive. Couldn't see the trailhead signs or the snow conditions or the line down the mountain. But he could get excited. And when a young Alex came home from school talking about some upcoming adventure — a ski trip, a canoe trip, a bike ride through the neighborhood that would inevitably turn into something more ambitious — his father would light up. Not politely. Genuinely. That's what started it. Not a perfect

Each of my second graders at High Tech Elementary learned to swim and ride a bike. I believed — and still believe — those are the foundational skills to a life spent outdoors. You can't fall in love with the ocean if you're afraid of water. You can't explore a trail if you've never trusted your own balance. By the end of that school year, we'd partnered with San Diego Junior Lifeguards and taken every kid to the beach for a single day. Surfing, boogie boarding, kayaking, stan

6 months into my role as Interpretive Program Manager with California State Parks, Big Basin Redwoods State Park reopened to the public. After the CZU Lightning Complex Fire in 2020 burned 90% of the park, it remained closed for 2 years. I’d only visited the park three times. I was still learning the trails. The man came in fast. His voice was loud before he was close. He was pointing, accusing me, the department, and the silence where park facilities and amenities used to be

How did I get here? Honestly, I don't know. That's the Talking Heads lyric stuck in my head when I started writing this. In many ways, I feel like I’m living that moment in my life right now. I’ve arrived. 14 years of marriage, 3 kids, beautiful house in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but did I earn it? Was it a result of my privilege? Did I make it myself? What I do know: I’ve spent my whole life performing success for other people and it almost killed me. Wildward Institute is w