Since 2005, the Audubon Center at Debs Park in Los Angeles has provided the opportunity for young people to connect with nature through a summer day camp programs.  Now, it's not all fun and games, Audubon believes that outdoor learning and exploration is very important to help cultivate the next generation of conservationists, but it also serves another purpose:  preventing "summer learning loss".

Each year, Audubon brings in a group of talented summer interns (college students) to help deliver camp programming.  We also train our teen volunteers, the Arroyo Green Team, to help with camp.  While these interns and volunteers serve a purpose, they also serve as mentors to the younger campers.  Sometimes this type of mentorship leads to really awesome things.  Case in point:

The other day we came upon one of our interns during her break with the Arroyo Green Team members huddled around here.  When we got in a little closer we saw what they were up to:  A lesson in calculus!

Things like this are a reminder of the sometimes unexpected benefits of our work.  It also makes us thankful for support for programs like this.  This year, camp and our internship program is supported, in part, by a grant from Time Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds Initiative, which seeks to inspire the next generation to be innovative thinkers who are rooted in science, technology, engineering, and math.  Connecting minds...indeed!