Conservation, Recreation, Education And Transportation Expo Greenway

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CREATE EXPO GREENWAY
for CONSERVATION, RECREATION, EDUCATION AND TRANSPORTATION: Expo Greenway

Eco-Pavilion Opportunity

Dean Howell presents an Eco-Pavilion on the Greenway.

He proposes • a sloped roof to funnel water through a center gap and into the filtration system highlighting the function during a rainstorm • stormwater enters the system from surrounding stormdrains at this point • educational programming with local schools and a direct link to Ecology Magnet – Overland School • interpretive signage about hydrology, native flora and habitat.

These 1939 photos of Rancho La Lomita (below), now part of the Westwood Gardens/Rancho Park area, show where nature filtered the water on its way to the sea. These creeks are now encased in the Sawtelle-Westwood Storm Drain System, which flows into Ballona Creek then the Santa Monica Bay. The old Santa Monica Air Line tracks are shown crossing one creek (below right).

TreePeople created the La Kretz Urban Watershed Garden at its Coldwater Canyon Park headquarters. It contrasts today’s paved-over metropolis with how things used to be – and can be again: a natural system where the land acts as a sponge to filter, absorb, and store rainwater, rather than sending it off to sea. By visiting the La Kretz Urban Watershed Garden, students and park visitors learn the simple practices of the Functioning Community Forest. The site features a conference center with a slanted roof that pours water into a sand pit (for easier percolation and capture).

Precedents in Creek Daylighting & Outdoor Classrooms

In Berkeley, California and Boulder, Colorado, elementary schools daylighted creeks to create stimulating learning environments – outdoor classrooms – near schools.

· Faced with the possibility of rebuilding damaged culverts following the Loma Prieta Earthquake, Berkeley residents successfully lobbied for daylighting Blackberry Creek next to Thousand Oaks Elementary School, providing a similar runoff based learning laboratory (below left).

· Boulder, Colorado’s Crest View Elementary School (below right) converted a concrete culvert next to a playground into a wetland environment with wildlife observation stations where students can go on a field trip everyday of the year.

At UCLA, college and high school students work together to daylight and restore Stone Canyon Creek.

· Winding through the trees in the upper-left of the photo of UCLA in 1929 (below), the Stone Canyon Creek has been culverted underground on most of its course to the ocean. Mark Abramson, director of Watershed Programs at the Santa Monica Baykeeper, is working with UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Lawndale, California’s Environmental Charter High School on restoring and daylighting Stone Canyon Creek. Mr. Abramson hopes that the younger students at UCLA’s Seeds Elementary School will get involved with weeding and simple water tests on the creek that bisects their campus at UCLA. (Newer photo credit: Brandon Wise brandonw@smdp.com)

In Studio City, California, the Los Angeles River brings life to an outdoor classroom.

The Richard Lillard Outdoor Classroom enhances the natural beauty of the Los Angeles River in Studio City. This shady walking park, which includes interpretive displays, an outdoor amphitheater, and native riparian landscaping, spans several blocks of the river’s edge. The Classroom was brought to the park by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority in 2003, with the help of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who was instrumental in attaining Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space Rivers and Streams Grant (Proposition A) funding for the $250,000 neighborhood and environmental enhancement project.

In Westchester, California, Los Angeles Unified School District is supporting Cowan Avenue Elementary School’s “Cowan Nature Center.”

Sustainability Curriculum

Outdoor classrooms bring concepts "alive" by actively using the habitat site. Students use math skills to map the schoolyard; science as they study photosynthesis; and social studies as they study past land uses of the school site. In today's learning environment, where schools are striving to meet and exceed high standards of learning, the schoolyard can be a valuable avenue for teaching and reinforcing curriculum standards and concepts for students.

Sustainability or “green” curricula abound. The City of Los Angeles Watershed Protection Division, partnering with the California Coastal Commission, provides curriculum materials including “Waves, Wetlands, and Watersheds,” Save our Seas, Kindergarten Lessons on Global Warming, and even a Lending Library. The California Regional Environmental Education Community (CREEC) Network is an educational project supported by the California Department of Education, Environmental Education Program, in collaboration with state, regional and local partners. The CREEC Network is the best source for Environmental Education resources in California. CREEC Los Angeles is supported locally by TreePeople.

Chosen Strategy of the Regional Water Quality Control Board

Education is inherent in “definition established by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board)” [PDF] for an integrated water resources approach:

”An integrated water resources approach shall not only provide water quality benefits to the people of the Los Angeles Region, but it is also anticipated that an integrated approach will incorporate and enhance other public goals. These may include, but are not limited to, water supply, recycling and storage; environmental justice; parks, greenways and open space; and active and passive recreational and environmental education opportunities.”