www.kidsforthebay.org

Organization Type:
Non-Profit

Mission:
Kids for the Bay collaborates with teachers to inspire environmental consciousness in children and cultivate a love of learning.

Contact:
Mandi Billinge
Kids for the Bay
1771 Alcatraz Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94703
Phone: (510) 985-1602
Fax: (510) 985-1641
kftb@aol.com

Geographical Focus:
Local, Regional

Counties Served:
Alameda, Contra Costa

Activities:
Education, Advocacy, Restoration, Water Monitoring, Water Pollution Prevention

Topic:
Bay & Estuary Habitats, Habitat Restoration, Environmental Justice, Marine/Estuary Reserves & Sanctuaries, Rocky Intertidal, Water Quality/Storm Water Runoff, Watersheds/Hydrology, Wetlands

Educational Resources:
Curriculum, Activity/Learning Kit, Outreach Programs, Field Trips, Brochures, Website

Education Programs:
CREEK AND BAY FIELD TRIP EXPLORATIONS ($125 per class)
A Kids For The Bay Leader meets you and your class for hands-on investigations of the animals and plants living in a creek, rocky shore or salt marsh habitat. A Teacher's Activity Guide is provided. Choose a location near your school or one of our popular field trip sites: Strawberry Creek, U.C. Berkeley Campus; Wildcat Creek, Richmond; Berkeley Marina; Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland.
On creek field trips:
•  Catch and identify creek animals and learn about their adaptations
•  Experiment with creek speed
•  Investigate creek-side plants.
On bay field trips:
•  Investigate plants and animals in rocky shore, mud flat and dock-side habitats
•  Discover special adaptations to life in the estuary and food chain links.

BAY ESTUARY CLASSROOM PRESENTATIONS ($150 per class)
A Kids For The Bay Leader will bring the San Francisco Bay Estuary into your classroom with three hours of hands-on experiments and investigations. A Teacher's Activity Guide is provided.
Bay Estuary Scientists: create a miniature estuary; experiment with mixing estuary water; investigate bay animals and plants; create food chains; crab dances and stories for younger students.
Pollution In Bay Food Chains- Safe Fishing And Cooking Practices: learn about biomagnification of pollutants in bay food chains; learn health risks caused by eating bay fish; safe bay fish cooking demonstration; share safe bay fishing and cooking guidelines with families.

BAY ESTUARY SCIENCE ADVENTURE ($660 per class)
A Kids For The Bay Leader meets with your class for an in-depth study featuring hands-on investigations, experiments and field trips to Bay and Creek habitats. This teacher development package includes a curriculum guide packed with student-tested, hands-on activities and a step-by-step guide to completing student action projects.
In a combination of three classroom presentations and a field trip, your class will:
•  Create a mini Bay-Estuary environment, experiment with mixing estuarine water, and make a three-dimensional model of the estuary,
•  Investigate animals and plants living in the rocky shore, salt marsh, dock-side and open water habitats, learn their adaptations for survival and connect them into food chains,
•  Learn how to reduce urban runoff pollution and design and implement pollution-reduction action projects.

CREEK KEEPING ($660 per class)
A Kids For The Bay Leader meets with your class for an in-depth study featuring hands-on investigations, experiments and field trips to Bay and Creek habitats. This teacher development package includes a curriculum guide packed with student-tested, hands-on activities and a step-by-step guide to completing student action projects.
In a series of four field trips to your local creek, your class will:
•  Catch and identify aquatic animals and learn about their adaptations,
•  Investigate and identify creek-side plants, learn about their importance to the creek habitat and plant creek-side plants beside your creek,
•  Calculate creek velocity, width and depth and the relationship between these factors,
•  Learn about reducing urban runoff pollution and design and implement a creek clean-up project.

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS FOR LOW INCOME SCHOOLS
•  Urban Creek Restoration and Pollution Reduction/Safe Bay Food Consumption
The following programs are funded by grants and are offered at minimal cost to low income schools. A KFTB Leader collaborates with a grade level team at a school located near an urban creek or a school with a high population of students whose families fish from the bay. KFTB chooses teams that are committed to integrating a program into their annual curriculum. The teacher will teach preparation and follow-up lessons, and KFTB will help the class to develop environmental action projects that flow from the curriculum. A stipend is provided to teachers to purchase educational equipment.
•  Urban Creek Restoration for third and fourth grades
A KFTB Leader partners with a grade level team of teachers and students to explore, clean up and restore a local creek. Hands-on science investigations teach about the creek ecosystem and its value to the local community as an educational and recreational resource. Students study the processes of erosion that form creeks, water velocity, adaptations of aquatic invertebrates and the value of creek-side plants. With the guidance of the KFTB Leader students plan and implement: community creek clean up projects, community education/outreach projects about alternatives to using pesticides and dumping in storm drains, tree and wildflower planting projects, frog and salamander raise and release projects.

POLLUTION REDUCTION/SAFE BAY FOOD CONSUMPTION
(for fourth and fifth grades)
This program focuses on the San Francisco Bay Estuary ecosystem, industrial pollution, environmental justice and how pollutants impact the health of wildlife and people. Students design and implement projects to educate their communities and communicate with local politicians and corporate executives about environmental justice issues and reducing pollution.
Many people regularly fish from the Bay and the food caught is an important part of their diets. Food from the Bay is contaminated, but there are ways to reduce the levels of contamination consumed.
KFTB will teach students about the ways in which Bay food can affect their health and choices that reduce health risks. Students will then teach their families safe bay fishing and cooking practices and interview people fishing on local piers about safe bay food consumption.

Target Audiences:
Kindergarten through 6th Grades, Teachers

Group Size Accommodated:
Up to 30

Other Languages:
Written materials
Spanish