2025-26 Educational Outreach Accomplishments

Click below to see photos from Teachers in the Wild 2025

Newsletter Teachers in the Wild photos

Click below to see photos of Students in Cave Creek Canyon

Newsletter School Groups Photos

April 2024 BioBlitz Event

Why Education is Important

In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.
        Baba Dioum, Senegalese forestry engineer
        1968 address to International Union for Conservation of Nature

From FOCCC’s formation, an education program has been a major strategic goal.  To conserve our biodiverse habitats, we must teach students about them, so that they can understand, then love, and then conserve unique areas like Cave Creek Canyon.

Future Plans for Education in the Canyon

We want to develop our offerings further, so that student visitors can participate in different sorts of educational opportunities.  Expansion depends upon people to assist us with expertise, volunteer hours, and of course funding.

How You Can Support Education in the Canyon

If you want to volunteer  time and expertise in delivering programs to students, please contact our Education program:  FOCCCeducation at gmail.com.

Education Outreach Successes

2024-2025 School Year: Befriending Cave Creek Canyon: Engaging Rural Youth in Biodiversity Discovery became our official K-12 education program, designed to bring  students to the canyon up to six times in a school year.  We were successful in getting many students to the canyon six times to explore biodiversity of birds, plants, insects, mammals and reptiles and amphibians.  We expanded our reach to include a total 198 students, including some who were only able to visit the canyon once.

We designed and ran our first Teachers in the Wild program in June 2025. The program is a teacher retreat and professional development, immersing PreK-12 educators in nature for a week and sharing the most effective strategies for teaching nature based learning.  Our pilot program with 18 educators was wildly successful and we look forward to our 2nd cohort of Teachers in the Wild to join us in June 2026. Offering this life changing program is possible through the generous support of the Thomas R. Brown Private Foundation Fund, held at the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona. Between Befriending Cave Creek Canyon and Teachers in the Wild, educators from 27 different schools were introduced to the stunning beauty and biodiversity of Cave Creek Canyon.

2023-2024 School Year: Following the COVID-19 pandemic, FOCCC Education Outreach started up again in the spring of 2023.  We returned in time to explore the science of the April 8th solar eclipse and to share eclipse glasses with high school students from the Douglas Center for Academic Success (CAS). We continued to explore the canyon that spring with CAS students and with students from Apache Elementary School.  A total of  54 students from four schools joined us in the canyon during our first full year back.

In 2018, FOCCC made consistent progress in bringing school children to the canyon to educate and to inspire.  What made this possible was a fund established in memory of Gerry Hernbrode, a beloved teacher and advocate for children and the environment.

In 2017, FOCCC hosted 3rd and 4th graders from Animas in the Canyon and included learnings about Native Americans, invertebrates, solar flares and sunspots, birds and frogs. Kids hiked into the canyon, and ended with a guided tour of the Desert Museum.

Prior to FOCCC’s establishment in 2011, many individuals in the Portal-Rodeo area dedicated their time, expertise, and facilities to educate children about the surrounding areas to ensure the preservation of  Cave Creek Canyon.