Por Juan Ramirez
Photos by Caylee Bessey and Dr. Victoria Derr
It’s a cool morning, and I feel the sting on my face. I’m there early because I know there’s never enough time to get everything set up. The sun is shining as I walk along Carneros Creek, and a half-dozen different species of songbirds fly tree to tree. I see blue-eyed grass, mugwort, and purple needle grass in between vibrant young oaks. I finish setting up the last station, as I walk back, I spot a big raptor that has its prey in its talons. It had a big round head. Could it have been a great horned owl getting its breakfast? Is it the same owl I’ve seen there for years? I get back to the welcome area, and I hear traffic on the road, but it sounds like the ocean. I feel calm, grateful to be part of this ecosystem of relationships.
Moments later, I am greeted with smiles, high fives, y “como estas, teacher?” 95 semillitas ready to be in relationship with each other, themselves, and this place. We open with a welcome, and I share the theme for the day: seeds. Specifically, how our values are our seeds. I invite everyone to reflect on what value, what seed, they would want to water today. A moment to honor ourselves, our parents, and our ancestors who have passed those seeds down to us. Respect, kindness, and curiosity are some of the seeds that were shouted out. I thank them for sharing, and offer that as we grow, we water them, tend to them, and trim their growth in order for us to become the people we want to be. I see smiles, blank faces, a sign for me to stop talking, and turn it over to the teachers to break up the groups. It’s at this moment that the magic begins.
Thirty 4th graders, six 5th grade mentors, and six college students head down to the creek to learn about beavers and build a beaver den. Students in groups of four gather willow branches, and there is a friendly competition to see who can gather the most. A couple of hundred yards away, another class is designing a future pond that will be part of the Outdoor Classroom. The group sits quietly, some have their eyes closed. A student points out that they hear quail up the hill. The whole class then gathers under a beautiful oak tree where 5th graders hold a big poster illustrating their vision of the future pond, adding different species of plants and animals they want to see. Students draw birds, plants, frogs and salamanders, deer, and there are kids sitting on a bench under a tree, fishing.
It was beautiful to see a collective vision of what the future could look like, a future they’re helping build together. Another hundred yards away, the last class is collecting seeds of native rushes that will be used for a future pond restoration project. As kids are collecting seeds, a student shares with her college mentor that she knows how to collect seeds because her abuelita saves seeds to grow food every year in her garden. THIS IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT.
The Outdoor Classroom program focuses on relationships in nature so that “magical moments”, or moments of joy in relationship, can happen naturally. These magical moments are alive, they are co-created, and even nurtured. When a child brings the story of who they are, their seed, we as educators, acknowledge the gift that story is and connect the different layers of relationships that are present in that moment. These moments honor ourselves, our memories, who we are in that very moment, and who we hope to be in the future.
For an outing like this to happen, three elementary school teachers, one college professor, 25 college students, and two land trust staff members collaborate in the planning, delivery, and evaluation of the programming. There is much willingness to work on this project together, to share ownership, because getting kids on the land to be in community is the right thing to do. I am so fortunate to have a partnership with CSU Monterey Bay’s Environmental Studies Professor Dr. Victoria Derr and her students, who are willing to engage in this placemaking project with us at the Elkhorn Slough Foundation and Hall District Elementary School. Tending to this relationship has deepened the impact this collaboration has had on the community. We reflect constantly on the work we are doing, but we also dream of the spaces we want to create in the future together.
This dream brought another partner to this project, Adelante, a group of artists and community-based researchers from Arvin, CA. Together, we came up with Water Stories, a project that builds elementary and university students’ connections with the water of Elkhorn Slough. We do that through natural dyes as a culturally relevant method of understanding water quality of the slough and its impact on the environment. It also includes a facilitated oral history project in which students interview their family members about their relationships to water, their ‘water stories.’
At the same time, we are creating a multitude of in-person experiences for the youth and families to experience the slough in community. This is where Semillitas Outdoors comes in. This event was co-hosted by Latino Outdoors Central Coast, Elkhorn Slough Foundation, CSU Monterey Bay Environmental Studies Department, and the women of Adelante. It was a celebration of the work we are all doing together, thanks to the California Coastal Commission’s Whale Tail Grant.
The event was a community-oriented gathering that brought intergenerational families together. It was a day to celebrate all the work this partnership has been co-creating and honoring the families we serve through different art exhibits and activities. Serving over 90 participants throughout the day, we were welcomed by danzantes from Kalpulli Ehecacoatl who shared a danza that honors children, the land, and water.
The CSUMB students celebrated their work with an immersive exhibit showcasing biocultural memories and joy in nature that included: a dyeing with home foods activity that highlighted the water quality story of the Elkhorn Slough through their water monitoring work, two-hands on interpretive plant and animal exhibits that had families learning about the different native species that call the Carneros Creek Outdoor Classroom home, and finally the indigo dyeing workshop where families shared their water story.
Having the elders from Adelante share about their water justice work with families present was a celebration in itself. Participants moved through the different activities at their own pace, adding their own story to the different exhibits, honoring memories, and creating new ones together. Semillitas in our program visit the Outdoor Classroom up to 15 times a school year. They are actively shaping the future of the program with their stories, they are stewarding the land, sowing seeds for their future relationship with the land. Our goal has been to connect semillitas to each other, themselves, and this place. The way we do it flows with the story, and recognizes that joy in relationships is how we can get there. This work is possible because our partners and familias are willing to build something together. It’s been my greatest honor to walk with you, listen to pajaritos, and tend to our semillitas together.
I didn’t grow up kayaking, birding, or even botanizing our local trails. I grew up with burritos paseados de mi apa, platicas en familia, friends and family coming over for a plato of my mom’s birria, listening to my dad share one of his charritas. I grew up inventing games outside, sliding down hills on cardboard boxes, and going out to the garden to pick medicina whenever I needed it. Today, more than ever, I am grateful for the comunidad that Latino Outdoors is. It has given me a place to belong to, to share stories with, to build community with familias the way my parents have taught me. To serve people, with people, con amor y comunidad.
Juan Ramirez was born and raised in Salinas, CA. Juan grew up visiting la familia en Mexico every winter break where he has fond memories of being connected to land and people. Whether he was helping herd farm animals on his donkey or being in the potrero with his family, he was always aware of the gifts the land gave him and his family. His parents’ experience being farmworkers shaped the kind of relationship he wanted to have with the land. He found the redwood forest being that place that gave him the embrace he needed. Since then, Juan and his family visit the redwoods as a place to connect with each other and the land. Juan stayed local and attended California State University Monterey Bay where his work with service learning led him to education. Now, Juan is the Outreach Coordinator for the Elkhorn Slough Foundation where he is bringing programming that focuses on creating healing relationships with nature and all program participants.
Volunteering as a program coordinator on California’s central coast, Juan will share LO’s different offerings with local families and help the LO Central Coast team with logistics. Juan hopes to collaborate with others and create more access for families in the outdoors.
