Nature Center Winter Camps a Big Splash with Local Kids

http://imperialbeach.patch.com/articles/nature-center-winter-camps-a-big-splash-with-local-kids

Chula Vista Nature Center provides winter camp activities for children four-years-old to 18-year-old with hands-on education of local wildlife and nature of the South Bay coastline region.

• By Albert Fulcher
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• December 29, 2011

As you walk through the front door, a tank full of little “Nemo” and “Dory” fish greet you. These are a big draw to the four-year-old to third graders on the first day of Winter Camp at the Chula Vista Nature Center. Off to a great start, kids ran from one aquarium to another, each finding a new discovery of the wildlife and nature that lives in and around the South Bay coastal resources.

Divided into two camps, four to six-year-old and first through third graders spent a day full of fun activity, education and a close up view of the wildlife the Nature Center works to protect and preserve.

Wendy Spaulding, director of education and guest experience, said the day camps have been going on for about a year and a half after starting new educational programs when the Nature Center became a private non-profit entity in 2010.

“Making those connections are our main passion. This is a way to engage the community both on a revenue level, to become sustainable on our own,” she said.” And also to connect our community with the local wildlife we have here.”

With preschoolers moving to the Shark and Ray Experience, many of the kids were just as fascinate by the squid bait used in feeding as one little guy decided he would rather keep his squid eyeball in his pocket rather than feed it to the rays. Screams of excitement filled the area as a bat ray breached and splashed water everywhere in the frenzy of feeding time. Camp instructors talked about stingrays and the friendly sharks related to each other and live in local coastal waters.

Alyssa Hall, assistant camp instructor and UCSD student, said she began working with the Nature Center in March and started with the summer camps. She said the aquarium included bat rays, round stingrays, leopard sharks, shovelnose guitarfish a horned shark and a crab.

“They all eat the same food, so they will all come up for the kids,” she said. “We make sure they are nice and safe. The barbs on the rays grow like fingernails so we cut their barbs every week so they don’t get long enough so they can sting.”

Other activities for the preschoolers included a trip through the Discovery Center, playing “Red Light, Green Light” stingray style and arts and crafts, creating some of the wildlife they had seen during the day. In the afternoon, preschoolers participated in an active camp learning all the moves of the wildlife in the area.

First to fourth graders met “Mr. T,” the desert tortoise and “Mr. Rosy,” resident rosy boa up close and personal. Camp Educators Daniel Conley and Andrea Estrada instructed the kids on cold-blooded reptiles, their diets, habits and protective measures in order for them to survive in the wild. With a full day ahead of them, they also fed the sharks, and met baby sea turtles up close.

Spaulding said the Nature Center is fortunate to have a wonderful green space right in the middle of an urban environment and the goal is to get as many kids out to the area as possible.

“The camp gives us the opportunity to do a little bit more in-depth with the kids than you would get on a typical visit,” she said. “We have a nice chunk of time to engage with them at their developmental level and get them excited to do a lot of things like feeding the stingrays and meeting the tortoise.”

She said its camps are a successful program that has grown in a very short time, starting with six kids and now having hundreds that sign up. She said a majority of the camp kids came from the Chula Vista area, but many come from the surrounding areas of Imperial Beach, Coronado, National City, San Diego, La Jolla and Lemon Grove. She said the Nature Center is a regional asset, but that the name is sometimes misconstrued.

“Overall, even with our school groups we have about 48 percent of visitors that come from the Chula Vista area, and the rest come from outside the area,” she said. “We are a regional asset and work with the Port of San Diego because as one of the port cities. But a lot of people still don’t know we are here.”

Spaulding said there is plenty of room for more children four-years-old to sixth graders in its January camps that run Jan. 2-6, 2012.

“If you register and say you read about Winter Camps on Patch.com, we will give an extra 15 percent off of registration fees,” said Spaulding.

Chula Vista Nature Center Winter Camp Schedule