City Council approves application for grant needed to fund field trips

At Los Flores Ranch Park, naturalists use the park’s native oak woodlands to show kids that science really does rule. 

“It’s just amazing how many of these kids never get out to an open space or to our forests,” said Susan Tuttle, education coordinator at Los Flores Ranch. “So they really don’t understand how important, or even what, our native vegetation is.”

California oak trees are naturally drought resistant, Tuttle said, and they house and maintain ecosystems that are vital to the animals and plants living near them. The trees produce acorns that the Chumash used as a primary food source centuries ago, and like other trees, they produce the oxygen that allows for human life on Earth.

Those topics would be the focus of a proposed field trip program for local elementary students, which Huttle said the city hopes to fund with a California State Parks Habitat Conservation Fund Program grant.

While Los Flores does provide free, science-focused field trip programs currently, Huttle said schools often struggle to pay for transportation. A grant could at least temporarily solve that problem, Huttle said, and the Santa Maria City Council voted unanimously on Sept. 18 to approve the city’s grant application. 

The field trip program, tentatively titled River to the Ranch Outdoor Experience, would give third, fourth, and fifth graders an opportunity to compare and contrast plant and animal habitats at Los Flores Ranch Park and the Santa Maria River in two, one-day field trips.

“It’s just a rare opportunity,” Bama Medley, a Santa Maria-Bonita School District teacher on special assignment for science and mathematics, told the Sun. 

While some kids do get outside with their families, Medley said few are fortunate enough to explore local ecosystems with experts who can help students identify different plants, animals, and insects, and explain why they live where they do. 

Field trips give kids a chance to learn outside the classroom in new and exciting ways, Medley said. The program would meet Next Generation Science Standards–new nationwide benchmarks for teaching science in elementary schools–and it would align with Santa Maria-Bonita’s core environmental science curricula. 

If successful, Medley said the program’s hands-on model would also spark scientific interests within students that classrooms, textbooks, and teachers alone cannot. 

“It makes learning real,” Medley said. “They’re reading about science now, but they need to be doing science. Real science.” 

While Santa Maria-Bonita is tasked with aligning the program to each grade level and ensuring its academic relevance, the city’s Recreation and Parks Department is charged with its development and funding. 

Cindy Hoskins, supervisor of the city’s community programs and development, said the California State Parks Habitat Conservation Fund Program grant would largely pay for transportation and prizes for participating students. 

The grant, which would require the city to pay a 50 percent dollar for dollar match, would also fund a proposed vehicle. Hoskins said the vehicle would act both as a driving advertisement for River to the Ranch, and a storage unit for some of the program’s materials, like animal pelts and bones. The vehicle could also be transported to schools and used for demonstrations at assemblies and parent nights. 

Although Hoskins said nothing has been solidified, a city staff report states that the field trips and mobile vehicle would cost an estimated $175,000 to implement. Some of that cost would also go toward providing families with free nature walks on the Santa Maria Riverbed trails. 

The grant application is due Oct. 1, and Hoskins said with approval from the City Council, city staff are on track to meet that deadline. 

Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash writes School Scene each week. Information can be sent to the Sun via mail, fax, or email at mail@santamariasun.com. 

This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 4, 2018.