Eastside Explorers

The Authority helped to fund Living Classroom’s partnership with Campbell Unified School District to implement their new Environmental Literacy Initiative called "Champions for Change.” This project focuses on designing, installing, and maintaining new and enhanced edible and native habitat gardens on all Campbell Unified School District campuses and providing garden-based lessons across all grade levels with the aim of connecting students to nature and the sources of their food and graduating environmentally literate students by 8th grade.

This project brings a wide variety of hands-on science and nature programs that meet the needs of students, teachers, and parents of Title I schools in the Santa Clara Valley. Their programs help develop science skills, inspire a love of nature, and promote environmental stewardship. Through this project, Environmental Volunteers provide support and resources to underserved communities to ensure the outdoors and science and nature education are accessible to all.

Children’s Discovery Museum’s “Exploration Portal” (EP) is a nature-themed educational space designed to engage children ages 2-10 and the adults who accompany them in hands-on environmental education. With the location’s adjacency to the Guadalupe River, EP encompasses three intertwined strategies for maximum environmental and educational impacts: 1) an architectural design that improves the health of the Guadalupe River; 2) 8 interactive exhibits that inspire curiosity and help children make discoveries about the natural world along with interpretive signage in English, Spanish and Vietnamese; and 3) a landscaping plan that role models the use of native and/or drought tolerant plants, cultivates biodiversity in the site's riparian environment, and immerses children and adults into the cognitive and physical benefits of a verdant environment.