SAMO fund celebrates 28 New stewards for the mountains

With the support of NPS Rangers Cathy Schoonmaker, Preston DeCorte, Ken Lowe and Kalli Martinez, SAMO Fund’s inaugural California Naturalist Cohort celebrated their graduation from the program on April 27 at the Visitor’s Center. Twenty-eight new California Naturalists received certificates and pins, and were sworn in as Junior Rangers, during a ceremony to celebrate their completion of the program.

Each participant completed a capstone project and presented what they learned about environmental stewardship in the Santa Monica Mountains. They shared videos, slide shows, bookmarks, nature journal templates, junior ranger activities, posters and other interpretation materials for Paramount Ranch, anti-rodenticide awareness, mychorizal fungi information, information on Santa Monica Mountains watershed impacts on surfers in the Bay, curriculum for urban wildlife, curriculum for environmental stewardship in local elementary schools, nature walks in the Santa Monica Mountains, citizen science projects about frogs, games for kids and more.