Mission Statement

WILD BY NATURE is a nonprofit corporation devoted to environmental education for youth. Our mission is to teach suburban school children and their teachers about local neighborhood endangered species and threatened habitats. Our purpose is to give them the academic tools to select, adopt, and protect any local species, then to appreciate the global implications of its ecosystem. Our grand design is to encourage every school in the nation (approximately 125,000) to adopt a local endangered plant or animal species.

About Us

The Children’s Ecology Club was inspired by my first grader in 1989. Supported solely by student-operated fundraisers, the club raised environmental consciousness through community activities. We successfully created a Continuum of Environmental Education, K-12, for local, neighborhood environmental studies. Reflected in our motto “One Person CAN Make a Difference!,” our purpose was to empower schoolchildren by encouraging them to know and adopt their own suburban neighborhood habitat.

In 1994, we incorporated as WILD BY NATURE, Inc. (501[c]3). With emphasis on habitat instruction and community service guidance, our diligence saved three endangered neighborhood vernal pool habitats from development and kept an additional one in unremitting mitigation. For our efforts, we earned local, state, and national awards, plus $42,000 from environmental competitions. The award money was used to establish environmental libraries and GroLabs® in three neighborhood schools. We designed a local wildflower poster and neighborhood endangered species bookmark, distributing 10,000 copies of each to San Diego schoolchildren. Our Continuum of Environmental Education linked with San Diego Miramar College, thus connecting four neighborhood schools, K-14, plus two bi-national environmental groups (California and Mexico).

By 1994, Wild By Nature established a huge collaboration between the Dept. of Fish and Game, California Native Plans Society, SDSU Biology Dept. Vernal Pools, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego City Park and Recreation Dept., Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, Girl Scouts, church and synagogue Sunday School groups, Hickman Elementary School, Challenger Middle School, Mira Mesa High School, and independent community members. Wild By Nature harnessed this community service energy and orchestrated the transformation of a vernal pool habitat into a Nature Learning Center with self-guided nature trails. After months of planning and clearance, and only ten days prior to launching the all-volunteer park enhancement day, San Diego City Park and Recreation Dept. had a political change of heart, blocked all public access, and locked the gates. The park area still lies fallow, but the nature learning center concept will no doubt be resurrected as all City Parks move into the 21st century. Until then, it is exciting to know what a small group of community spirited individuals can do together to help build a better world.

Presently, WILD BY NATURE, Inc. has expanded our focus from schoolchildren to schoolteachers. Based in curriculum building and professional development, our mission is to empower and impassion California schoolteachers to teach environmental education in a purposeful and forward-thinking manner that will help carry us all into the 21st century.