Fires burn Los Angeles schools and destroy outdoor education sanctuaries
For Irina Contreras, program manager for the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, outdoor education has been a refuge for both her and her daughter during the pandemic.
Now much of that refuge has burned down the raging forest fires around Los Angeles.
Her 7-year-old daughter, Ceiba, hikes with a children’s adventure group called Hawks and attended Matilija, a bilingual forest school for preschool and kindergarten. Rain or shine, she and her friends spent their days climbing, jumping, hiking and swimming in places like Eaton Canyon Nature Area, a 77-acre preserve near Altadena, now destroyed by fire.
Ceiba learned to ask plants for permission before taking samples to paste into her nature journal. Once, her group discovered a hidden path leading behind a waterfall. Ceiba kept talking about it for days.
For parents like Contreras, the wildfires are not only devastating the loss of lives And thousands of houses. They mourn natural and educational areas that served as refuges and places of learning for local families, especially in the years since the pandemic. The fires destroyed natural areas that served every type of educational setting: public and private schools, nature-based preschools, homeschool groups, summer camps, and more.
They also set fire to school buildings, including Odyssey Charter School in Altadena, where Miguel Ordeñana’s children attend.
“The community has been devastated by the fire,” said Ordeñana, senior manager of community science at the Natural History Museum. “It was a challenge to carefully share that news with my children and help them process their emotions. Many of their friends lost their homes. And we don’t know the impact on the school staff, such as their teachers, but many of them also live in that area and have lost their homes.”
Some areas unaffected by fire were inaccessible due to poor air quality. Griffith Park, home of the Hollywood sign, was not affected as of the end of this week, but it is not clear when air quality there will be good enough to resume outdoor programs, said Ordeñana, who was the first to catch a late-night shot on camera. puma in the nearby area that became known under the name P-22.
Ordeñana said his family has been able to connect with some other Odyssey Charter School families for pizza and an indoor play date, but he’s not sure what the days will look like for them with school closures already stretching into next week.
All schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, were closed Friday because of heavy smoke and ash over the city. Classes will not resume until conditions improve, officials said. Pasadena Unified School District also closed schools and several campuses suffered damage, including Eliot Arts Magnet Middle School.
The California Department of Education issued a statement Wednesday saying 335 schools from Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and San Diego counties were closed. It was unclear how many would be closed Monday.
During the pandemic, Contreras felt like she was glued to a screen. She spent much of her energy working, writing, and organizing, but her daughter’s outdoor education helped her understand the value of stepping out of the rut.
Contreras is confident outdoor programs will return, although it is unclear when it will be safe for people to hike in areas like Eaton Canyon.
“The nature center is gone,” Richard Smart, superintendent of the Eaton Canyon Nature Area in Pasadena, said Thursday. “The wildflowers and shrubs are gone.” The park hosted dozens of school field trips each year, and Smart estimates that more than a thousand students visit each year.
“Teachers liked it because it was also free, it was local, it was close. And it was a place to see nature – wild nature, but also in a friendly, safe environment,” he said.
Only a few exterior walls of the Eaton Canyon Nature Center were still standing, he said.
“For a lot of local school districts, we were really in their backyard, and now they won’t be able to use that for the foreseeable future,” he said. “The park is such a touchstone for people in the community, and losing that is deserved, devastating isn’t even the right word. It feels indescribable.”
Many parents and teachers are probably wondering what to do and where to take their children as fires continue to burn across Los Angeles, said Lila Higgins, senior manager of community science at the Natural History Museum and author of “Wild LA.” , a field research company. travel and nature guide.
Higgins, a certified forest therapy guide, says time in nature lowers heart rate, lowers blood pressure and makes children with ADHD feel calmer and more relaxed.
“For children’s cognitive development, time in nature and time spent connecting with nature is so important,” she said. Outdoor spaces can also help children develop relationships through connections with animals, understanding orientation through space by following trails and reading maps. and understand human impact on wildlife.
“A lot of the places we’re talking about are very popular with homeschoolers, but they’re also a destination for some field trips, especially places like Eaton Canyon,” said Greg Pauly, co-author of “Wild LA” and director of the Urban Nature Research Center at the museum “I think it’s safe to say that people will continue to interact with those landscapes and that it will hopefully still be a field trip destination in the future. But it will certainly be a while before That happens.”
“This is the reality of modern Southern California,” he said. “Fire changes the landscape and people’s lives alarmingly.”
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Mumphrey reported from Phoenix and Lurye from New Orleans.
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