Our environmental education programs help kids experience the fun of science, while learning about their relationship to the natural world and the ways in which they can protect our natural environment.
We provide free and low-cost environmental education programs for elementary, middle and high school students throughout New York City. Through school day, after school and summer programming, we reach more than 3,000 kids across New York City. We also offer credit-bearing training and paid internships for teenagers interested in environmental science.
View our program overview here.
Seeds to Trees provides outdoor field experiences and hands-on classroom activities in New York City parks for elementary and middle school students. Students will be introduced to science and nature in fun and engaging ways, whether through studying biodiversity, urban wildlife, forest ecology or healthy waterways.
Our innovative program inspires early adolescent girls to excel as environmental scientists and stewards of New York City’s precious natural resources. Middle school students go on outdoor adventures in parks and along our waterways after school and during the summer.
CityParks Learn Green Girls program will pause after the Spring 2024 season to enhance and better meet the needs of young New Yorkers. For more than two decades, this free program has offered NYC communities the opportunity to use their local parks as outdoor classrooms as well as help create positive change within their environment. During this time, we will work to further evolve our program and look at new ways to continue inspiring and nurturing the next generation of environmental stewards.
Our gardens fosters a love of science and nature among kids through hands-on lessons during the school year and group programs during the summer as well workforce training for high school students. From gardening to growing fresh produce, elementary and middle school kids learn the fun of community gardening, healthy eating, understanding biodiversity of our urban environment and more in our four gardens across the city.
Our program invites middle school kids to use the New York City waterfront as outdoor classrooms to get actively involved in our marine ecosystem with hands-on learning. Participants will explore our waterways and learn about everything from water ecology to quality, urban waterfront restoration to preservation, sparking excitement and passion for conserving our coasts and waterways.
Our Teacher Training programs provide 2nd – 8th-grade teachers with academic and administrative tools to conduct science lessons using a New York City park as their outdoor classroom.
Generous private support for CityParks Learn programs is provided by The Pinkerton Foundation, The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, the Guru Krupa Foundation, ExpandED Schools through funds administered by the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development in Partnership with the City Council, the Glenn W. Bailey Foundation, The Linda B. and Howard S. Stern Family Foundation, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Rose M. Badgeley Charitable Trust, the Catskill Watershed Corporation in partnership with New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the Michael Tuch Foundation, the Watershed Agricultural Council, and the Jane and Frances Stein Foundation. Supporting sponsors National Grid, Ernst & Young, The Walt Disney Company, United Airlines. Generous public support for CityParks Learn is provided by the New York State Environmental Protection Fund NYSDEC Hudson River Estuary Program, and by the New York City Council under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams.
CityParks Learn programs are made possible in partnership with NYC Parks.
At City Parks Foundation, our mission is to encourage New Yorkers to use their neighborhood parks by offering free environmental education, arts, sports, and community-building programs that bring people into their local green spaces. Please give now if you can—we know that city parks will continue to thrive when all New Yorkers get involved.
