Golden Gate

Since opening in 2007, the Intertidal Lab at NatureBridge Golden Gate has been a student and staff favorite. The lab’s “touch tank” aquarium and the experiential learning it offers draw young people and adults alike to its waters for a hands-on exploration of Northern California marine life. It is a space unique to the Golden Gate campus, and it never fails to inspire questions and observations from visiting student groups. As a tool for developing young people’s scientific inquiry skills and passion for the marine environment, the Intertidal Lab is second to none. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic’s temporary closure of the lab represented a heartbreaking but necessary decision in 2020.

When your classroom is the great outdoors, teaching and learning can happen anywhere! That’s the attitude Drew Gallant brings to his work with NatureBridge as a multi-campus educator. Drew first joined NatureBridge as an educator at our Prince William Forest campus in Virginia in the spring of 2022. From there, his multi-campus adventures have taken him to two of our California sites, Dangermond Preserve and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Although it’s located across the country from his childhood home of Maine, Drew now considers our Golden Gate campus to be “home.” This isn’t surprising, considering his favorite NatureBridge memory is that of sighting a pod of dolphins off Rodeo Beach with a group of Golden Gate students!

The National Park Trust, in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS), announced recently $375,100 to fund 18 education and outdoor recreation projects through the 2023 NPS Challenge Cost Share Program. Each project connects a local community to a nearby national park, national trail, or wild and scenic river. This year’s group of awardees will engage more than 8,600 participants in active, healthy outdoor recreation and in education initiatives that increase knowledge about our nation’s natural and cultural heritage.

NatureBridge is thrilled to announce Dr. Sylvia Earle as our guest speaker at An Evening Outside with NatureBridge, our annual fundraising event on May 11, 2023. This event will be held on our campus at Golden Gate Recreational Area where we will spend an unforgettable evening celebrating the stewards of today!

At NatureBridge, we celebrate the stewards of today and foster the development of the stewards of tomorrow, working to inspire environmental stewardship in all our participants. Our goal is to motivate our students to be changemakers in their communities and for our planet.

Each year, NatureBridge honors a student who has demonstrated leadership, growth and a commitment to protecting our natural world as a result of their participation in a NatureBridge program. This year’s honoree will be recognized and will speak at An Evening with NatureBridge on Thursday, May 11 at our Golden Gate campus.

For Golden Gate Campus Director PaHoua Lee (she/they), there’s no place like the Marin Headlands. “Every time I’ve had an important life event,” PaHoua notes, “I have come here to the Headlands to celebrate.” From engagement photos to pregnancy announcements to family hikes, PaHoua has been drawn back to this special place over and over again. “This place always felt like home to me. I left [after working here as an educator for two years], but NatureBridge has always stayed with me in a lot of ways.” Ten years later, in July 2022, PaHoua returned to NatureBridge as Golden Gate's first woman of color Campus Director.

When your first outdoor adventure is a week-long wilderness canoe camping trip with your parents at the tender age of 18 months, you might have a hunch that nature is going to play a big role in your future!

NatureBridge recognizes and is grateful for the land upon which we are privileged to run our programs and the indigenous peoples who continue to care for and have stewarded these places for thousands of years.

Welcome to the fourth and final feature in our Sense of Place series: Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The national park sits just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, enveloped by the majestic Marin Headlands. Its beaches, wetlands and coastal prairies boast a myriad of ecosystems and habitats to explore and opportunities to build meaningful relationships with the natural world.