California Coastal Commission: Restoring and Reopening the Intertidal Lab
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.
The intertidal zone [on a coast line] can be a difficult place to explore for many of our students who don’t have frequent access to coastal areas or are physically prevented from reaching the rocky shoreline. The touch tanks at NatureBridge allow accessibility for all of our students to discover and learn.Lillian Pearson, Lab Steward
Due to our inability to provide in-person programming to students during the pandemic, the Golden Gate campus temporarily closed. As a result, all of our Intertidal Lab tanks were drained and our animals were donated to another educational organization that could care for them. However, after laying dormant for two years, the lab received a new lease on life from the California Coastal Commission’s WHALE TAIL® Grants Program. The WHALE TAIL® Grant provided NatureBridge with the necessary funds to repair, refresh and restart our Intertidal Lab program.
Awarded in 2022, the WHALE TAIL® Grant provided $50,000 toward the restoration of NatureBridge’s Intertidal Lab, including $15,000 in scholarship support for underserved young people to engage with the tank once it was functioning and resupplied with marine life. Since the Intertidal Lab is the most popular and most frequently-requested activity at our Golden Gate campus, we were thrilled to complete the needed repairs and refurbishments with the help of the California Coastal Commission’s generous grant and reopen the lab to students.
When we first opened the campus back up in 2021, program groups were frequently disappointed to hear that our Intertidal Lab had yet to open. It is super exciting to get our tanks back up and running and open the doors to students.Lillian Pearson, Lab Steward
Since reopening for the 2022-2023 school year, the Intertidal Lab has hosted over 2,400 students and over 1,000 summer campers (through Golden Gate’s Coastal Camp program). As Lab Steward Lillian Pearson notes, the most frequently asked question about the Intertidal Lab this year has been, “Can I go in there?”
“Kids always want to walk right into the lab when they see it,” Lillian remarks with a smile. “I frequently have kids knocking on the door when I close it to do maintenance work and have to turn them away until their checked-out lab time. There’s something that draws kids in and fills them with a desire to explore the tanks and see what kind of animals they contain.”
Because of the support of the WHALE TAIL® Grant, thousands of students every year will continue to experience the wonder and science of nature within the Intertidal Lab at Golden Gate. It’s an experience that will inspire and equip these young people to better understand, celebrate and protect the natural world—including the California coast and intertidal zone—and it’s one we’re grateful to be able to offer once again, thanks to the generosity of California Coastal Commission’s WHALE TAIL® Grants Program.
Stories
Fall Reflections from NatureBridge Yosemite
As an environmental science educator, I spend a lot of time teaching about nature, but this season I’ve been finding that as it turns out, nature has a lot to teach us, too. Sometimes I can let the trees, the meadow, and the lichen teach for me. They show us how to respect each other’s boundaries, how to celebrate differences, how to work together, and how to lean on each other’s strengths in order to exist in a new place. These lessons felt incredibly relevant to me heading into the first week of November, a notoriously busy time at NatureBridge Yosemite. I wanted to focus on messages of kindness and inclusivity with my students, I wanted them to feel a sense of belonging in this new space, and I also hoped that they would share those messages with others.
An Incredible 10th Anniversary of Evening on the Lake
On October 25, the Amazon Meeting Center in downtown Seattle buzzed with celebratory energy as over 300 NatureBridge guests and supporters gathered for the 10th anniversary of "Evening on the Lake," our signature Pacific Northwest fundraising event for our Olympic campus.
"Science became fun" at NatureBridge for Alum Laura Lomeli Russert
Laura Lomeli Russert is a NatureBridge alum who grew up in Groveland, CA and now calls Washington, D.C. home. Laura’s journey with NatureBridge began when she attended the Golden Gate campus as a young student with her class from Tenaya Elementary. Laura credits NatureBridge with shaping not only her love for nature but also her passion for education and science. "Science became fun,” she recalls. “You weren’t learning from a textbook anymore, and it became so much more real." Her hands-on, scientific experiences at NatureBridge laid the foundation for her eventual pursuit of a Ph.D. in psychology. “I feel like I owe a lot to NatureBridge."