Outdoors summer camps with a nature or environmental education perspective

Examine the unique rainbow sands of Rodeo Beach. Photo by Headlands Institute Coastal Camp

Young ones? Camps with preK and K programs

Bay Area Discovery Museum and Headlands Institute Coastal Camp (PreK and up)
Tree Frog Treks (PreK and up)
Audubon Camp (Age 4 and up)

After the article How to choose an outdoors summer camp in the Bay Area, here is the lowdown on the "local and seasonal" version of outdoors camps: camps with a solid dose of environmental education and Bay Area nature. These camps all have one thing in common. Since they are based on exploration of our immediate environment, they will take your child outside a lot. The idea is precisely to discover nature's little secrets in a fun way.

"We seek to inspire and cultivate a meaningful connection to the natural world in the lives of our campers through outdoors explorations, hands-on learning opportunities, creativity and play," says Christina Loehnig of the Headlands Institute. Bring on the next green generation!

In the Bay, outside is frankly an exciting place to be for a kid. Think coastal marshes, sand beaches, redwood forests, hidden caves or even the wide blue ocean. With these camps you can't go wrong. Your kids will come back tired from their day but a "good" tired. They may even ask for directions to their camp directors to take you back for a family outing.

Here is a list of family favorites recommended by local parents.

Audubon Camp at Richardson Bay - Tiburon: set in the amazingly Richardson Bay bird sanctuary, the Audubon camps will have your children get down and dirty in the mud to find bugs, critters and explore the bay like they never have. 2010 themes include "Sanctuary Explorers", "Wild Sanctuary", "Mudflats and Tidepools", "Bugliest Bug", "Dirt to Treetops", "Amazing Flyers", "Incredible Water", "Earth Stewards" and 'Sharks!". Audubon offers programs from June 14 through August 20, 2010.

Coastal Adventures - Half Moon Bay: exploring the coast south of San Francisco, this "mobile" camp was created by a former kindergarten teacher-dad with a knack for cool nature spots. Having grown up on the coast, he shows little known local gems to his summer campers. He also uses nature in a playful way. At Coastal Adventures, children make swords from sticks and jump ropes from seaweed. Jon shows the children the sweetest berries and has contests to see who can eat the sourest. "My son did Beach Week last year and I was incredibly impressed by how Jon runs his camp," says Corrine Bucher. During Beach Week, children explore beaches on the coast, each one unique. One has an amazing blow hole that can shoot water 30 feet in the air when the swell and tide are right, one has a giant sand dune to race down from with boggie boards, one has a hidden tunnel leading to another beach. Never a dull beach moment! Jon offers Beach, Bike and Exploration weeks from June 14 through August 13, 2010.

Coastal Camp at Headlands Institute - Marin Headlands: based right outside of San Francisco in the Marin Headlands, Coastal Camp features outdoors hands-on exploration, hiking, arts and crafts and group games. High energy campers would enjoy an overnight camping trip during Call of the Wild or a sail on the bay during Ocean Explorers. Quieter campers will prefer getting up close with seal and sea lions during Seal Scouts, petting a shark during Shark Squad or practicing field sketching techniques trailside during Art Expedition.

Of note is the Seal Scouts camp, where campers can practice a mock seal rescue on Rodeo Beach and head up to the Marine Mammal Center to see pinniped patients recovering in the marine mammal hospital. Older children in grades 7-9 conduct ocean and bay research abord the schooner Seaward as they sail the bay during a 2-day trip with an overnight on Angel Island. Note that for campers with younger siblings, the Headlands Institute partners with the Bay Area Discovery Museum to offer shuttles for pick up and drop off. The camp runs from June 14 through August 20, 2010.

Crissy Field Center Summer Camp - San Francisco: with the best view on the Golden Gate Bridge, this camp offers great two-week programs exploring the local national parks and our urban environment. Each day is designed so that campers spend at least 75% of the time outdoors, the rest being spent at the new Crissy Field Center's Urban Ecolobgy, Media or Sustainable Arts labs. "In all of our camps, we engage a lot of steam and community building activities with the intention of drawing out quiet campers and play some high energy games to give the really active campers a chance to burn off some of their energy," says Josh Gannis, program manager at the Crissy Field Center. Take Water Wizards for example.

If the theme of the day is watersheds, campers start in the Eco lab and learn what a watershed is, then go out to hike and follow the Tenessee Valley Watershed up to its source at Inspiration Point. Then they have lunch and free play outside, before continuing with the watershed theme by making their own watershed models in the Art lab. At the end of the day, campers can play an organized game such as kickball or whiffle ball or build sand castles or story time for younger campers. It's a full fun learning experience. The Crissy Field Center offers summer camp from June 14 through August 6, 2010.

Kids Nature Adventure - San Francisco: "I decided to start Kids Nature Adventures because open-ended play and exploration in nature is rare for kids growing up in the city," says Glenn McCormick, founder of the camp. A former highschool teacher, McCormick takes children in a minivan to tide pool habitats, redwood forests, ponds or creeks and lets the children's own interests and discoveries guide their daily explorations.

"It was a truely incredible experience for my kid," says Uli Zinnkann from San Francisco. "They went to different nature locations every single day of the week and explored, played, hiked, built forts, watched animals and finally created a journal with paintings at the end of the day." The journaling part is particularly cool in fact. Not only does it help kids process and remember their day, but it's also something to take home and look back on. Michael Vannelli, another San Francisco father, adds about his son that "it was with a small group, great leaders and he came home happy, dirty, tired and full of amazing stories." Isn't this the essence of summer camp? Kids Nature Adventure offers summer camp from June 7 through July 23, 2010.

Tree Frog Treks - San Francisco: San Francisco wouldn't a nature-loving city without Tree Frog Treks. With this camp, children get out and get dirty every day from a meadow in Golden Gate Park to the greater San Francisco area, learning directly from animals and plants living in the park. "We have seen a red tailed hawk catching a pocket gopher in our meadow, redwoods dripping fog onto our tongues and red-eared slider turtles lazing on the log in the sun in front of the Stow Lake boathouse," says Chris Giorni, camp director.

With a strong preservation focus, Tree Frog Treks offers programs such as "Know your natives", "Restore what came before" and "Nature in the city." Campers seek out and find animals and plants throughout the day and then key them out using local field guides. The ultimate in green: the campers litterless lunch leftovers feed Tree Frog Trek's worm bin. Tree Frog Treks offers camps from June 14 through August 13, 2010.

Wanderers - San Francisco: only a year old, this hiking camp is soon to become immensely popular. Here is the concept. "The camp is dedicated to getting kids out in nature and challenging them in positive ways through hiking, learning about nature, and cooperating with their fellow campers," says Courtney Norris of San Francisco. Her 8-year-old son attended last year's session and enjoyed it so much that he's returning for a week-long sleep-away camping camp launched by Wanderers for 3rd and 4th graders. Behind Wanderers is a man's vision. Kurt Gantert, director of Wanderers, has an impressive resume in outdoors education and a strong love of nature. Through the camp, he and his staff point out good "stopping points" during a hike, like a creek or giant redwood with "cave" inside for the kids to play in.

One of his activities called "Hug a tree" gets children to use their less-dominant senses and interact with nature in a different way. Kids are partnered in groups of two, one with a blindfold, one without. The one without spins the other one around a number of times and leads him/her to a tree. The blindfolded child gets to touch the tree and is then led back to the spot they started. The blindfold is removed and the previously blindfolded child has to try to find the tree they touched. Wanderers offers camps from June 14 through August 13, 2010.