SF Children & Nature

San Francisco Children & Nature

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Resources for Parents

Connect with Nature in SF

Resources for STUDENTS, Parents and educators

Now more than ever, we need nature. Fresh air, exercise, and play bring a multitude of physical and mental health benefits including reduced stress and a stronger immune system. Nature helps us heal. It makes us and our children happier and more resilient.

Below is a collection of San Francisco-based resources for nature connection from our partners.

Hike, Walk & Run

Discover nature in your neighborhood—it’s everywhere, in parks, front gardens, and streetscapes (SF Environment) and visit SF’s many parks: SF Rec & Park, The Presidio, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Candlestick Point State Recreation Area, and SF Port Parks and Open Spaces

Make Nature Inspired Art

Draw or paint outside or from the window. Discover Nature Journaling and learn how to teach it (John Muir Laws/BayNature), create Park Art Projects (Parks Conservancy), try Neighborhood Nature Art (Green Schoolyards America). Find inspiration from the Anywhere Artist book to create with rocks, leaves, pine cones, and twigs (Hannibal Ferret Story Books)

Yoga, Dance & Stretching

In your neighborhood park, backyard, or in your home, take a minute to breathe, stretch and move your body. As a family, try yoga (Storyhive).

Explore! Look for bugs and other creatures

Use garden binoculars to help you look close (SF Botanical Gardens). Take pictures with a camera or phone. Use seek by iNaturalist, the family-friendly app that helps you identify and learn about species while earning badges (Cal Academy). Use Merlin to help identify birds (the Cornell Lab). Celebrate bugs with the Randall Museum.

plant a seed and watch it grow

Bring nature inside. Grow plants from with seeds you may already have in your kitchen (A piece of rainbow). Try growing your own beans (Food Corps), avocado (Avoseedo), and making seedling pots from toilet paper rolls (Instructables).

Celebrate the Earth

Catch a sunrise or sunset. Track the moon. Observe the clouds. Honor Earth Day and bring attention to climate justice by recycling materials to make #WindowEarths (Ruth Asawa School Environment Club). Learn about oceans with the Randall Museum.

Engage all of the senses

Find a spot in nature. Sit still and observe what you see, hear and feel.

Cook!

Make delicious food together and appreciate the work that went into bringing your food to the table. Recipe ideas with lesson plans (Food Corps).

read about nature. Take story time outdoors if possible

Join the SF Public library Virtual Storytime with special guests like Mayor Breed! Tandem Partners in Early learning has storytime and activity guides for young children. Check out these multicultural book recommendations for K-5 plus virtual nature storytime ideas like Señorita Mariposa, a bilingual Spanish-English story about Monarch butterfly migration from the SF Botanical Gardens.

Go on a scavenger HUNT

Search for and identify natural objects in your backyard, on your block or at a nearby park. Try the Backyard and Neighborhood Native Species Bingo (Cal Academy), this one (REI), this one (Patterson Audubon), or create your own.

Additional Resources

NATURE ACTIVITIES

ONLINE LEARNING FOR KIDS

ONLINE SERVICES 

VIRTUAL NATURE VISITS

Further ReaDings

  • Children & Nature Network | FindingNature.org – A new national resource that will be updated each week with tips, tools, and blogs to help us stay connected to nature.

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Who We Are

Nature for Every Child. Every Day

A citywide collaborative

San Francisco Children & Nature is a cross-sector collaborative that works to ensure all children & youth growing up in the city have the same opportunities to PLAY, LEARN and GROW in NATURE.

Together, we make it easier for youth and their families to have frequent and quality experiences in nature by:  

  • Expanding opportunities for nature connection in early education, schools, and neighborhoods. 
  • Advocating for places, programs, and policy that support our mission. 
  • Addressing inequities in nature access and programming.

Vision

Nature for Every Child. Every Day

Mission

In collaboration with our members, we work to address the disparities in nature access along socioeconomic and racial lines to ensure all children have the opportunity to play, learn and grow in the outdoors. 

Strategic Vision 2024 – 2029

As we step into our seventh year of collective action, we’ve taken a moment to reflect and evaluate how to continue moving toward even greater impact and sustainability. We are thrilled to share our 2024-2029 Strategic Plan representing a continued commitment to building a city-wide movement that enhances access to nature spaces and high-quality nature experiences.

See Our Strategic Plan >>

SF Children & Nature VALUES

Increasing ACCESS and CONNECTION to nature spaces in Environmental Justice Communities.

Providing high QUALITY nature experiences in Environmental Justice Communities.

Centering on WELL-BEING and health outcomes in Environmental Justice Communities. 

Recognizing the Collaborative as a COMMUNITY.

Environmental Justice Communities

Since our founding, we have used equity metrics to prioritize projects, programming, and funding in the City’s most disadvantaged and racially diverse communities. In 2023, we adopted SF Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities to guide its work addressing equity in children’s connection with nature. The EJ Communities map was developed by the SF Planning Department and identifies the data tracts in SF that have a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards, experience higher health risks and are predominantly low-income.

See highlights and photos >>

A National Initiative

SFCN was founded in 2017 as part of Cities Connecting Children to Nature (CCCN), a national initiative of the National League of Cities and the Children & Nature Network, to inspire and support cities, city leaders, and their partners to prioritize access to natural green space, outdoor recreation, and learning opportunities for underrepresented children.


Learn More

Our Team

Outdoor Bill of Rights

Why Nature?

Our First Three Years

By

SF Children & Nature members & friends,

We hope your 2020 is off to a good start. As we embark on a new decade, we’d like to pause to reflect on the first three years of our work together as the San Francisco Children & Nature collaborative.

We have a lot to celebrate! With passion and persistence, we’ve grown from a seedling to a collaborative of over 30 participating organizations. Individually and collectively we’ve been making strides towards our vision of equitable youth nature connection in San Francisco.

Highlights include:  

  • 342 preschoolers hosted at Nature Play Days in equity zone parks
  • 9 nature connection professional development workshops for educators with local and international experts
  • 36 early childhood playspaces enhanced for nature connection incorporating 974 tree stumps and ‘pizzas’ from downed park trees
  • the collaboration of planners and designers on the Nature Exploration Area Playbook (coming soon) 

…and much more.

We are excited to share with you our report:

SF Children & Nature – Our First Three Years

Thank you for being part of our journey thus far.

On behalf of present and future generations of children and youth growing up this extraordinary city, our heartfelt gratitude.

SF Children & Nature Steering Committee
Anthony Khalil
Curtis Chan, SF Department of Public Health
Damien Raffa, Presidio Trust
Gianna Fazioli, Department of the Environment
Lara Hitchcock, YMCA
Lisa Lee, First 5 San Francisco
Maria Durana, SF Children & Nature/SF Recreation & Parks
Tamar Barlev, SF Unified School District (Green Schoolyards)

Presidio Tunnel Tops | Prototype Field Station + Outpost

By

Presidio Outpostby Damien Raffa

In the Fall of 2021 the Presidio’s new Tunnel Tops park will open, featuring extraordinary new experiential features that will substantially add to the now actively enlarging “ecosystem” of nature connection in the city. For the second summer, the Presidio Trust prototyped experiences envisioned for the outdoor 2-acre nature play Outpost and the indoor multi-sensory investigative Field Station.

More than 2,500 children, youth and grown-ups have participated in our staffed programs this summer, and countless others enjoyed the nature play on other days of the week. This Nature Exploration Area pop-up will remain for public enjoyment through the end of October. Go check it out on the Presidio’s Main Post (map search “34 Graham Street“) and play “grass is lava” on the logs and stumps, barefoot even!

To create the pop-up installation, we worked with renowned natural playground expert, Adam Bienenstock, and 35 participants representing early childhood educators, project managers, planners, architects, teachers, foresters and gardeners as part of an SF Children & Nature design-build workshop. The Presidio Trust’s forestry crew crafted the “bones” of the Nature Exploration Area with logs from park forest management projects. See video

Progress to Date

2017 – 2018 HIGHLIGHTS

  • 25 infant toddler outdoor play spaces were enhanced for nature connection. Teachers, administrators and families worked with coaches to green educational spaces and increase nature-based curriculum through First 5 SF and the Office of Early Care and Education (OECE)
  • 187 Early Childhood Educators received nature-based education training through First 5 SF, OECE and San Francisco Unified School District.
  • Teacher Mabel Young was recognized for Excellence in Teaching for her efforts to connect children to nature in the Presidio through First 5 SF and the OECE. See heartfelt video.
  • First Children in Nature themed convening and resource fair held with 200+ early childhood educators through OECE and First 5 SF. Phil Ginsburg presented the San Francisco Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights and shared the importance of nature connection every day.
  • Piloted project to repurpose downed trees and provide natural loose parts to support nature play at Early Education sites through First 5 SF, SF Rec & Park and Presidio Trust
  • Developed city-wide Youth Nature Survey for identifying nature connection baseline and barriers to access. Survey to be implemented in 2019.
  • Developed and Implement, through Education Outside, a Green Schoolyards Assessment tool for Early Childhood Education (ECE) Sites. Piloted in 33 ECE sites across the city through a grant from Kaiser Foundation
  • San Francisco Rec & Park designed and created Rolph Nicol Nature Exploration Area. 120 Stonestown YMCA youth test the space over three play days.
  • Drafted recommendations for the SF Planning Department’s Family-Friendly City Initiative to ensure that access to parks and open space are part of the long term goals and vision.  
  • Developed a nature connection measure for Our Children Our Families (OCOF) outcomes framework which aims to provide insight into the well-being of children, youth and families in SF. The Controller’s city survey will measure the percentage of families that visit parks frequently every 2 years to track progress.
  • 12 dedicated create-with-nature programs held for youth at 7 SF sites through SF Rec & Park, the YMCA, California Academy of Science, Department of the Environment, Department of Public Health, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and in collaboration with environmental artist Zach Pine
  • Coordinated action and planning with over 25 governmental agencies, non-profit institutions, and community-based organizations.

SAN FRANCISCO CHILDREN & NATURE

SF Children & Nature is part of the national Cities Connecting Children to Nature (CCCN) initiative and is working to address the disparities in nature access along socioeconomic and racial lines to ensure all children have the opportunity to play, learn and grow in the outdoors.

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CONTACT

(415) 298-7532
info@sfchildrennature.org