Fundacion La Puerta : Programs

Urban Planning
and Conservation

	Mount Kuchumaa Conservation Easement
	Tecate River Park Project

Environmental
Education

	Las Piedras
	Workshops for Children
	Teacher Training Program
	Interpretive Trail
	Summer Camps
	Volunteer Training Program
	Tecate River Clean Up

Cultural and
Recreational

	Parque del Profesor
	Dia de Muertos, "Day of the Dead"
	River Through My Eyes
	World Environment Day
	Native American Culture

Inspiring a love of nature.

Las Piedras Environmental Education Center lies at the center of Fundación La Puerta's Environmental Education Program and its commitment to creating a magical place where children fall in love with the earth. Here, children discover the interdependent relationship between humankind and nature, and learn to treasure and protect their natural environment.

“We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had had no childhood in it. “
—George Elliot

Environmental Education Program Objectives.

• Educate and inspire the people of Tecate to respect and celebrate their immediate natural environment–the chaparral plant community.

• Foster a sense of place among the citizenry of Tecate.

• Offer the community a cultural and recreational center that is set in a natural environment.

• Organize and promote events that celebrate human interdependence with nature.

• Enrich the school system's environmental curricula by offering educational materials, activities and training.

Las Piedras Environmental Education Center.

Set in the midst of 28 acres of chaparral near the foot of Mount Kuchumaa in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico, Las Piedras ("the rocks") is a vital part of Parque del Profesor, a city park and recreational center built and maintained by Fundación La Puerta for the community of Tecate.

A visit to Las Piedras is all encompassing. Its boulder-like architecture inspires awe and wonder while providing a unique learning environment for thousands of children and their families. Children in the buildings feel like they are part of the earth. One building is an open workshop/shelter where they can work with larger materials like clay and reeds. An indoor classroom supports drawing. But the heart of Las Piedras is the audio visual room—it's like an ancient cave site, with earth-formed benches shaped like rattlesnakes. A place of mysteries.

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Ongoing Projects and Events

Environmental Workshops for Children.

Over 10,000 school children have attended workshops at Las Piedras, the Fundación's worldclass environmental learning center. They learn and are inspired to love nature by using their senses in the midst of chaparral, the predominant ecosystem in Tecate. Workshop themes are varied and include topics such as: "Everyone needs a Rock," and "The Wonders of Seeds." The themes of the workshops coincide with the Mexican national public school curriculum's ecology component. This partnership in experiential learning serves to broaden and deepen the children's overall learning process. The magical Las Piedras setting, combined with games and art projects, inspires the children to get to know, love, and care for their natural environment. Fundación La Puerta has worked with 80% of the schools in the Tecate region, both urban and rural.

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Teacher Training Program.

The Fundación's unique Teacher Training Program offers tools and expertise to develop the teacher's technical abilities and environmental knowledge which they can take back and integrate directly to the classroom. Set in the magical caves of Las Piedras Environmental Education Center, the teachers become "children again" and are able to break the molds of traditional classroom structure and provide an all-encompassing immersion using all of their senses and creative abilities. Over 350 teachers have benefited from our program.

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Interpretive Trail Walks.

Supporting its objective to educate and inspire the people of Tecate to respect and celebrate their immediate natural environment—the chaparral plant community, Fundación La Puerta offers Guided Interpretive Trail Walks throughout the foothills of the Sacred Mount Kuchumaa. The Fundación has published beautiful plant and animal community field guides to compliment the interpretive trails which surround the Las Piedras Environmental Education Center located in the Parque del Profesor, the Fundación's 28 acre city park on the western outskirts of Tecate.

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Summer Camps for Children.

Each year 40 children from the Tecate area participate in Fundación La Puerta's fun-filled Summer Camps. These children are exposed to the different ecosystems in the region—Forest, Chaparral, Desert and Ocean. For many of the participants, this is their first-ever glimpse of the Pacific Ocean—a dream come true. After 10 days of camping and participating in the camp games and workshops, the children are ready to return to their families and share and incorporate what they have learned, such as creating a compost pile in their homes.

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Volunteer Training Program.

"I feel part of something now," announces one of Fundación La Puerta's youth volunteer corps participants. This innovative program educates and supports these future decision makers in Mexican society to become active and inspired participants in their communities as volunteers. Energetic youth,ages 17-23, participate in extensive team-building excercises. Activities such as "You Are I, I Am You," a self-knowledge and self-esteem empowerment workshop, foster a sense of pride in the youth allowing them to confidently reach out to others. The Tecate River clean up and mountain grafitti removal campaigns are two examples which allow the volunteers a venue based on camaraderie to serve their community as a volunteer, in an environment which connects them with nature.

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Tecate River Clean Up.

Led by Fundación La Puerta's own Youth Volunteer Corps and other members of the Tecate community, over 11 tons of trash have been picked up from just two recent Tecate River Clean Up campaigns. Children and youth of all ages take part in beautifying this historic river which winds throughout the Tecate region. These efforts are an integral part of the "River Culture" the Fundación promotes as part of its program to develop environmental stewards within the community. The river clean up process starts with community workshops that instruct the volunteers on the importance of a clean, safe environment to improve their overall quality of life. As a component of the Tecate River Park Project, the river clean ups are part of the overall effort to restore a living river which embraces parks, recreation and wildlife, as well as preserving an important sector of the regional watershed.

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