Growing the Urban Forestry Education Center

Saved By Nature’s Cultural Competency Project engages over one thousand people of all backgrounds and abilities through three types of environmental education programs: 16 natural & culturally relevant guided nature hikes for underserved multigenerational communities and first time park users; 14 weeks of hand-on science day camp activities for 3rd - 5th graders in collaboration with seven clubhouses from the Boys & Girls Club of Silicon Valley; and two immersive 2-day, 1-night backpacking experiences for up to 30 at-promise-youth teens and their staff in partnership with Youth Alliance. The program mentors and elevates other organizations by sharing best practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Participants discover and explore breathtaking open spaces near home together, gain skills and confidence that will embolden them to return many times over, steward our natural areas, as well as engage in restorative practices that foster joy and healing in the open space areas of our region.

Measure Q funds will go towards Joseph George Middle School's Learning Lab/Community Garden, which will promote environmental education by expanding on an existing garden on the school's campus. Through apprenticeships, outside classroom lessons, and community meetings students, teachers, and parents in the Joseph George Middle School community will become more aware of environmental and land use issues. End results will include: improved student academic outcomes, increased knowledge and awareness of gardening and the environment for all involved constituencies, the beautification of the school campus and the neighborhood, and the introduction of freshly-grown produce into the diets of several families who currently live in a park-poor neighborhood within a food desert section of San Jose. Construction will begin in Spring 2018.

While there are many trails in the Santa Clara Valley, none connect the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Diablo Range and tie the Santa Clara Valley into the Bay Area Ridge Trail, a 375-mile network of trails that unites the ridges circling the Bay Area. The Authority is helping to fund the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council’s feasibility study to consider and identify a preferred Ridge Trail alignment between Santa Teresa County Park and the Coyote Creek Trail as part of ongoing efforts to fix this South Bay “trail-gap.”