Park-School Partnership for Nature Preserve Management

About the Program

Category: Parks and Recreation (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

In 2010, the Miami-Dade Parks' Natural Areas Management Division (PROS-NAM) initiated a partnership program with TERRA, Miami-Dade's first "green" public high school. The program has enhanced the cost effectiveness of forest management and promoted intergovernmental cooperation and coordination in land management and public education.TERRA's main education area is environmental science. The school lies within Kendall Indian Hammocks Park, a county park with more than 50 acres of "hammock" forest besieged with invasive exotic plants. The setting was ideal to forge a partnership and use the park's forest as a hands-on living laboratory where students could learn and engage in forest management techniques and conduct research using state-of-the-art technology.The partnership includes two initiatives which are coordinated by PROS-NAM biologists: Parent Teacher Student Association Volunteer Workdays and NAM­ TERRA Student Land Management/Research Field Ecology Curriculum.Since 2010, PROS-NAM has coordinated 26 volunteer events, involving 426 participants, who have contributed 1,704 hours saving NAM over $ 23,000.One hundred and sixteen students have participated in the Student Land Management/Research Field Ecology curriculum, logging over 3,120 hours with a value of $ 38,000. The total cost savings to the county for the program thus far is over $61,000.