Community support could lead to local science camp
Pinnacles National Monument will turn 100 years old in 2008, but
there were no plans for parties, cakes or celebrations.
That wasn’t acceptable to Pinnacles Superintendent Eric
Brunnemann. He came to San Benito County from the southwest where
many of the national parks in the region had recently had 100th
anniversaries without so much as a hurrah.
Community support could lead to local science camp
Pinnacles National Monument will turn 100 years old in 2008, but there were no plans for parties, cakes or celebrations.
That wasn’t acceptable to Pinnacles Superintendent Eric Brunnemann. He came to San Benito County from the southwest where many of the national parks in the region had recently had 100th anniversaries without so much as a hurrah.
“I think that’s not acceptable because a celebration is a chance for everyone in the area to remember why we have this monument in our backyards,” Brunnemann said.
Pinnacles is hoping to get a helping hand on its celebration – and other programs – in the form of a new partnership. The partnership will provide funds for those programs that are short on money and for new endeavors – including the condor protection program and a newly proposed science camp that has some locals really excited.
National parks are eligible for federal funding but that doesn’t mean they have an endless supply of funds, according to Brunnemann, since federal grants usually carry constraints about how and where the money can be spent.
Part of the problem is that the park has the same budget they’ve always had, but recently expanded the amount of land they are responsible for with the addition of the Butterfield property, which was donated to the park by the Kingman family, according to Pinnacles Partnership President Tim Regan.
“With funding being diverted from the [National]park systems, the [local] park is hurting for money, especially with the acquisition of the new property,” Regan said. “Suddenly we have the same budget, but more land. We want to keep it natural and that requires money.”
When considered with the exponentialincrease in visitors every year, according to Regan, and it is clear that additional money is necessary if the park wants to continue expanded programming.
For something such as the hiring of an additional park ranger the financing is available, but for a centennial celebration or a science camp funding is nil.
With a growing list of projects without hope of funding, Brunnemann and a core group of organizers started Pinnacles Partnership.
The partnership started about four months ago and the mission is to get established as a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization so that the park can benefit from additional donated funds.
One of the areas that Brunnemann is hoping can benefit from the partnership is the condor program.
For four years the park has been partnering with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife to help release condors back into the wild. Pinnacles’ claim to fame, according to Brunnemann, is that it is the only public park where condors are caught and released.
“Most of the condors we release don’t have moms and dads, so there is no imprinting on the birds,” Brunnemann said. “The birds live here at the park for three months and interact with the birds we have out here. We currently have 13 at the park. During that time they learn the landscape and learn how to behave. Eventually they leave, but they come to think of the Pinnacles as home.”
There may be program funding for a biologist, but there are always additional costs involved with doing a release that are not covered.
One of the programs Brunnemann is most excited about is a science camp that would be organized with the San Benito County Office of Education.
Should the program come to fruition the county office of education would partner with Pinnacles to bring kids from the county to the park for three-day mentoring sessions with the park rangers.
“We’re really excited about the potential for this program,” Brunnemann said.
The kids and teachers would stay at the campgrounds and the rangers would take them along to do real park service work in specific disciplines. Some of the selected activities might include testing water samples and logging the information into computers or monitoring condors with a Global Positioning System (GPS).
County Superintendent of Schools Tim Foley is very enthusiastic about the program’s potential.
“I look at this as an opportunity for students in the county as well as other folks in the region to have an outdoor science center there [at the Pinnacles],” Foley said. “The kids will work in the classroom then put their class learning into practice and it isn’t just for one group of students. Ultimately, we can have a wide range of schools benefit from the program. We’ll just have to adapt the curriculum.”
The idea is that kids do real life sciences within the park and at the end of the three days they go back with the real data they collected for analysis, Brunnemann said.
“It gives the sciences application to the real world,” Brunnemann said. “Given all the information kids are supposed to know for standardized testing, it works well with the tests. Ultimately we’d like to derive out of this a science camp that feeds back into the school system.”
With the partnership in place, people can donate money to help programs such as the 100th anniversary celebration and the science camp succeed.
Until the 501(c)3 is in place, the organization is working with the San Benito Community Foundation. Anyone interested in donating funds can do so through the Community Foundation.
Patrick O’Donnell can be reached at
po*******@pi**********.com
