Mission Springs Outdoor Education

What better time to take a special moment to celebrate our favorite slugs than on Earth Day! Have you ever gotten to see a banana slug at work!?

A former naturalist, Roly Poly Rachel, created an OE bingo card! How many of you would get a Bingo? Can anyone get a full blackout?!

Spent the morning deepening our knowledge on recycling, trash, and compost at the City of Santa Cruz Resource Recovery Facility! Did you know that the city of Santa Cruz produces 220 tons of trash a week and an additional 60 tons of recyclables?! What’s a way that you can reduce your use of consumables? Drop your answer below!

Celebrated completing the first half of our busy fall season by heading to the pumpkin patch! Who will carve the best banana slug pumpkin!?

Week 1!! Great weather, solar oven cookies, shelter building and 200+ new members in the slug club! We’re enjoying our holiday weekend and resting up to welcome on Tuesday for Week 2!

And just like that - two weeks of training are over. 4 more sleeps until we welcome Bristow Middle School for our first week of the year!

The best day of training - Banana Slug Club Initiation!!

8 new members
4 annual renewals &
2 directors ready to take on the year!

Can you believe that we are already wrapping up week 1 of training!? This week your Nats saw campfire for the first time, learned orienteering, wild kingdom, get growing, and go green! We also got to spend time at Natural Bridges State Beach doing some invasive species removal before spending the afternoon learning our field trip curriculum. One more week of training and only 10 days before we welcome our first school of the year!

“12 eager naturalists all set to begin,
With nature their classroom and wonder their twin.
They laced up their boots and set out on the trails,
Exploring the secrets that nature entails.”

We are SO excited to get our new year underway! 8 new naturalists and 4 adored returners start training on Monday! Drop your favorite Science Camp memory in the comments!

Happy Earth Day!!! We kinda like it here - especially the 200 acres we get to share with all of you! What’s your favorite sight here at camp!?

🌲Dream job alert!!🌲We’re hiring for the 25/26 school year. If you’re looking for a unique opportunity to teach in the redwoods and live in the Santa Cruz Mountains - this could be the perfect fit! Visit the link in our bio to apply now!

Today we enjoyed the sunny weather while touring the City of Santa Cruz’s Resource Recovery Center where naturalists learned rules and regulations around the recycling business! Then we made a stop at the Life Lab Garden at the UCSC farm and learned more about their program and mission as well as a few new tips and tricks to add to our teaching repertoire!