Blue Sky members lead and engage in strategic grantmaking to promote connections to nature and advance environmental literacy across the country. Case studies provide a deep look into innovative and effective collaborations between funders and the field, offering insights and guidance about how to develop and implement similar initiatives in other regions.
Urban Forests for Climate & Public Health
Building on a 145-year history, American Forests’ mission is to create healthy and resilient forests from cities to wilderness that deliver essential benefits for climate, people, water and wildlife. American Forests advances this mission through forestry innovation, place-based partnerships to plant and restore forests and movement building.
Kids in Parks
The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation’s Kids in Parks program engages kids and families in outdoor recreation to foster lifelong wellness and meaningful connections to public lands. Kids in Parks accomplishes this by working with partners throughout the United States to create a network of self-guided TRACK Trails that convert ordinary hikes into fun-filled, discovery-packed adventures.
The Student Conservation Association’s GulfCorps: Habitat Restoration & Job Creation for a Stronger Gulf Region
The Student Conservation Association (SCA)’s mission is to build the next generation of conservation leaders and inspire lifelong stewardship of our environment and communities by engaging young people in hands-on service to the land.
Space to Grow: Transforming Chicago Schoolyards for Students and Communities
Space to Grow is an innovative public-private partnership to transform schoolyards in Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods into vibrant green spaces for outdoor learning, active play, physical education and environmental literacy.
National Park Foundation’s Citizen Science 2.0: Featuring Parks as Places of STEM Learning
Citizen Science 2.0 (CS 2.0) is the centerpiece of a suite of new and enhanced NPF-NPS educational programs that seek to ensure that more students and teachers from underserved communities can experience national parks as places of learning.
Chesapeake Bay Watershed: Implementing Regional Environmental Literacy Policy
The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) is a federal-state partnership that oversees the protection and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay—the largest estuary in the country. It includes partners from federal and state agencies, local governments, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions that come together to support goals and outcomes defined in a series of watershed agreements dating back to 1983.
Ocean Discovery Institute: Scaling an Educational Model Locally and Nationally
Ocean Discovery Institute works to address inequities in access to rigorous science and environmental education by using an ocean science platform to empower students, from urban and underserved backgrounds, to transform their lives, community, and ultimately the world as science and conservation leaders.
Student Conservation Association: Building Capacity for Character and Conservation Outcomes
The Student Conservation Association’s (SCA) mission is to build the next generation of conservation leaders and inspire lifelong stewardship of the environment and communities by engaging young people in hands-on service to the land.
Nature Kids/Jovenes de la Naturaleza Lafayette: Nature Experiences at Community Scale
Nature Kids/Jovenes de la Naturaleza Lafayette (NKJN) is a 5-year, $10-million, 27-organization collective impact project led by Thorne Nature Experience. The mission of the project is to change the lives of underserved Lafayette youth through connection to nature and the outdoors, and simultaneously change the field of environmental education (EE).
Chesapeake Bay Foundation: Systemic Solutions to Advance Environmental Literacy
Since its founding in 1967, environmental education has been a cornerstone of CBF’s work. CBF programs have reached 1.5 million people and aim to connect citizens to local waterways in order to create a constituency who value the Chesapeake Bay watershed as a living, connected system, willing to take action to restore clean water and ensure a high quality of life for all inhabitants.
ChangeScale: Fostering Local Partnerships
ChangeScale is a partnership effort in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area that are working together to advance the cohesiveness, effectiveness, and prominence of the field of environmental education. ChangeScale envisions a world where all generations have the environmental know-how to create healthy communities and a healthy planet.
Learning for Action: The Environmental Education Better Results Toolkit
The Environmental Education Better Results Toolkit strengthens EE programming and improves outcomes through data-driven measurement, reflection, and learning. The toolkit grew out of on-the-ground practice: 17 EE organizations engaged in a three-year capacity-building initiative (LEAPS, Leadership and Evaluation to Advance Program Success) funded by the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and led by Learning for Action (LFA). The toolkit is a compilation of resources on how to become a stronger learning organization and represents an enduring contribution in support of effective EE programming.
The San Diego Foundation: Opening the Outdoors
Through its Environment Initiative, TSDF’s Opening the Outdoors program connects, protects, and increases access to nature across the county, prioritizing underserved and park-poor communities.
Environmental Education Funders Collaborative: Magnifying Bay Area Funders’ Impact
The Environmental Education Funders Collaborative (EEFC) strengthens local philanthropy in the greater San Francisco Bay Area that is focused on equipping students with the outdoor experiences, scientific knowledge, and habits to become lifelong environmental advocates and engaged members of their communities.
