CAELI Partner Portal: Gateway to Exploration and Learning in Nature

By Celeste Royer | November 13, 2024

One wonderful memory I have of my many years directing an outdoor school was leading a group of students along the trail when we came upon a dragonfly nymph attached to a post. The students stood quietly and quite mesmerized for almost twenty minutes as they watched the dragonfly emerge from its larval stage. It slowly spread its wings in preparation for flight. The students were clearly amazed to observe metamorphosis occurring in real life. It was all they could talk about the rest of the day. As an educator, I was ecstatic to observe these students experiencing nature in such a memorable way. Watch a dragonfly emerge.

Educators want students to develop socially, succeed academically, and thrive as individuals. One way to achieve these goals is to provide students with a variety of settings and experiences where they can learn about the world around them. When students are given opportunities to experience the natural world and discover its magic, their sense of discovery is heightened, and they become deeply engaged in learning. Community-based partners (CBPs) across California provide these settings for students to make connections with the natural world. They offer a variety of programs that build students’ environmental literacy and hopefully develop their lifelong love of learning. 

The California Environmental Literacy Initiative (CAELI), a collective action network that seeks to ensure access to high-quality environment-based learning for all California students, launched the CAELI Partner Portal in 2021. The CAELI Partner Portal is intended to serve as a central directory for finding community-based organizations that offer environmental education programs (in-classroom, field trip, overnight, etc.) for TK–12 students and educators throughout the state. 

The goals of the Partner Portal are to increase equitable access to impactful environmental literacy programs, foster collaboration, build capacity for educators, and establish consistency in program alignment. Over the last couple of years, the CAELI Partner Portal’s listing of community-based partners and their programs has grown. Educators seeking nature-based programs for their students, especially those serving urban centers, low-income communities, and communities of color, now have one place to easily locate them.

County Offices of Education Provide Key Support

CAELI is grateful to work in partnership with many County Offices of Education (COEs) to support environmental literacy across California. As of November 2024, twenty COEs host CAELI Partner Portal microsites that connect educators to their local community-based partners. These microsites will be supporting COEs to build partnerships and collaborations between school districts and community-based partners, as in the following examples: 

  • The Santa Cruz County Office of Education is committed to advancing environmental literacy and providing districts, schools, and community-based partners in its county with environmental education programs, resources, and professional learning experiences. According to Amity Sandage, environmental literacy coordinator at  Santa Cruz COE, “The community-based partners in our region play a vital role in creating more equitable access to inspiring outdoor learning for students. These immersive experiences in nature are some of the most memorable parts of a child’s education journey! The CAELI Partner Portal is a great tool that helps us connect partners and schools and extend the classroom into the community and local ecosystems.”
  • The San Diego County Office of Education offers a variety of events and professional learning opportunities to help educators learn about the California Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs), connect the EP&Cs to all content areas, and use environmental literacy as a tool to bring culturally relevant instruction to classrooms. 
  • The San Mateo County Office of Education serves as a central convener for bringing together a network of community-based partners that offer environmental education programs throughout the county. The purpose of this network is to foster collaboration between nonformal environmental education providers and the formal education system, to build capacity and consistency in program alignment, and to further integrate environmental literacy into districts and schools. 

These are just a few examples of the tremendous support provided by county offices of education to advance environmental literacy and promote the CBPs that provide quality programs and services to school districts. Visit your COE microsite to see the community-based partners in your county. If your county doesn’t have a microsite yet, you can also search directly for community-based partners in any California county.

Community-Based Partners Deliver Quality Experiences for Students

There are currently over 350 CBPs listed on the CAELI Partner Portal. These organizations provide students with engaging learning experiences in the natural world, and their programs support content standards taught in the classroom and bring science and other subjects to life. 

Here are a few examples of CBPs listed on the Partner Portal: 

  • TreePeople offers a wide range of programs to schools and community members throughout Los Angeles. 
  • Hidden Villa hosts students on the farm in Santa Clara County. 
  • Sacramento Splash outdoor education programs are helping create the next generation of nature stewards. 
  • Escondido Creek Conservancy in San Diego County introduces young students to native plants and animals in their local watershed. 
  • Elkhorn Slough Reserve serves Central Coast communities with programs on coastal and marine ecosystems.

The CAELI Partner Portal links educators from across California with numerous community-based partners that provide the most incredible programs in the most amazing natural spaces. Perhaps there is a mesmerizing moment waiting for your students to experience!

Sign Up today for an account on the Partner Portal. Search for community-based partners and programs in your local area. Watch this video to learn more, and share this amazing resource with your fellow educators. We encourage everyone to promote the CAELI Partner Portal and distribute this promotional flier to all educators and CBPs in your region and networks.

The CAELI Partner Portal is powered by Green Guardians, in collaboration with California Environmental Literacy Initiative (CAELI) and Ten Strands, and with generous initial funding support from the BelleJAR Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Morgan Family Foundation.

By Celeste Royer

Celeste Royer is a veteran administrator with forty years of experience in environmental and outdoor education. As director of environmental education at the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education, she directed Rancho El Chorro Outdoor School’s residential, field, and classroom programs. As director of the California Regional Environmental Education Community Network, she built regional and statewide partnerships to support environmental education programs and initiatives. She provided thirty years of leadership and support to the California Outdoor School Association. A strong advocate of environmental literacy for all, Celeste serves on several boards of organizations that promote equity, justice, and conservation in environmental education including Justice Outside and the Land Conservancy of SLO County. She is also a volunteer with Latino Outdoors and helps coordinate the Central Coast chapter. Celeste holds degrees from UCLA, SFSU, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

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