Launched in 2018, Oakland Goes Outdoors was created with the vision of having all OUSD students benefit from spending more time outside.
To create more accessible and equitable opportunities for Oakland youth to experience quality time outdoors.
This is done through providing inclusive, culturally informed, skills-building trips facilitated by Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) educators and partners, both during and beyond the school day.
Our Mission
Our mission is made possible through collaboration with key implementation partners including:
Research has shown that outdoor experiences provide children with numerous health, social-emotional, and academic benefits, including:
improved attentiveness
lower stress
reduced absenteeism
better academic performance
California Surgeon General’s Report (2020)
Spending quality time in nature at an early age also helps develop lifelong environmental stewardship.
Unfortunately, not all children have equal access to these opportunities. Oakland Goes Outdoors was designed to work within and alongside the public school system, meeting young people where they spend significant time while addressing common barriers including cost, transportation, appropriate gear, skilled guides and inclusive programming, so that more Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) students can enjoy the immense benefits of going outdoors.
Oakland Goes Outdoors’ Program Objectives include:
Strengthen social-emotional learning & academic connections at participating school sites.
Improve mental & physical health of participating students.
Increase feelings of student, class and school site connectedness & community.
Encourage environmental literacy and nature advocacy.
Ensure that all students have the opportunity to go on at least one immersive outdoor trip per academic year.
Our Reach…
During the 2022-23 school year, 4,766 students from 17 schools participated in 140 trips.
In 2023-2024, more than 5,600 students from 23 schools participated in 221 trips during the regular school year. We also piloted programming during summer 2024, successfully coordinating 71 trips serving more than 1,650 students across the district. Collectively we served more than 7,200 students between August 2023 and July 2024.
During 2024-2025, we expect to serve at least 8,000 students across the school year and summer programming combined.
Our long-term goal is to reach every student, every grade and every school in the district with programming each year.
…And Who We’re Reaching
We currently serve primarily Title 1 Schools.
All but one school we serve has 40% or more students eligible for free/reduced priced meal plans - more than two thirds of the schools we serve have 85%+ students eligible.
Racial Identity of Student Participants
Our History
2016: The San Francisco Foundation established the Youth Access to Nature Fund (YAN) with a lead gift from Kathryn Riddell and the Riddell Family Fund. YAN was designed to expand access to outdoor experiences particularly for children in the Bay Area who would not easily have meaningful outdoor experiences due to the cost of transportation, gear and other expenses/ barriers.
2018-2019: Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) leadership, via the Middle School Network, initiated a partnership with Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT) and the Oakland Public Education Fund, originally called Middle School Outdoor Leadership (or MSOL), to better integrate outdoor programs with the district’s goals around Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and social-emotional learning (SEL).
The leaders involved believed middle school in particular was a key time to expose young people to quality time outdoors; as research shows this is a period when many kids increase their time spent indoors and on screens, becoming more disconnected from their outside and natural surroundings.
Integrating outdoor programming into the school day also meant more kids would have access to these meaningful experiences.
This partnership was funded by a seed grant through YAN, again generously provided by the Riddell family - and Oakland Goes Outdoors (OGO) was born!
OGO launched initially as a 3-year pilot program in 2018-2019, beginning with OUSD district-run middle schools (sites serving grades 6-8).
The pilot’s initial goal was to provide every Oakland public middle schooler with positive and inclusive outdoor camping experiences, many who had never been exposed to their local parks, much less an overnight camping experience in the wilderness.
2020: The pilot was extended and adapted due to the impact and disruption of COVID-19 in March 2020.
2021: OGO’s first full-time employee - Jessica Oya - was hired. She came into the position with more than a decade of OUSD classroom experience, having taught science and coached cross-country at Life Academy, during which she incorporated outdoor excursions into lesson plans and practices.
2022-now: OGO has continued to increase participation at the 11 original middle school sites, as well as expand to all OUSD district-run school sites serving grades TK-8 & 6-12 and select pilot elementary and high schools. We now have 5 core team members alongside many advisory/ implementation partners.
In summer 2024, we launched summer programming for the first time in partnership with OUSD’s Expanded Learning program, and successfully organized 71 trips serving 1,650+ students.
During the 2024-2025 school year, we are supporting 24 schools, and expect more than 6,000 students to participate in ~250 trips by the end of the school year.
Long term we hope to have programming in all OUSD schools!
During the public launch of Oakland Goes Outdoors in May 2019, OUSD Middle School Network Superintendent Mark Triplett expresses why getting Oakland students outdoors is a top priority.