The Wildlands Conservancy offers a free staff-run outdoor education program to over 30,000 children a year at our Oak Glen, Wind Wolves, Pioneertown Mountains, Mission Creek and Whitewater preserves. Our outdoor education program has over 20 dedicated employees who make what is often children’s first experience in nature a truly memorable one.  Our Outdoor Discovery program at Oak Glen, Wind Wolves, Whitewater, Mission Creek, and Pioneertown Mountains provide free programs for 30,000 school children each year. This five-hour, hands-on, nature adventure field trip where elementary school children learn, explore and have fun! When funding is available, TWC supports free day programs and a weeklong outdoor science school for an additional 60,000 children a year, primarily through grants to Orange and Los Angeles counties’ school field trip programs. Education Program site The Wildlands Conservancy is sometimes asked why it spends funds on outdoor education when those funds could be spent on land acquisition. People often forget that the boundaries that protect our National Parks and wilderness areas are not sacrosanct and inviolate. It is the minds and hearts of people dedicated to preserving these lands that vigilantly protect them through time. This is why fostering the love and appreciation of nature in children is so important. Our outdoor education programs and preserves are an invitation to enjoy the beauty, inspiration and physical challenges of exploring magnificent landscapes. We trust that people will, through time, listen to birds and streams and voices more eloquent than our own. In life’s long journey, picnicking under ancient trees, exploring solitary trails and catching a mountain trout add up to more than the tree, the trail and the trout. We are more inspired, reflective and thoughtful as individuals and as a society because of those experiences.