Explore the Refugio Symposium

Nearly 100 years ago, the Refugio State Beach Education Center sat nestled amongst simple Beach cottages dotting Refugio cove along the channel coast of California.

On September 25 of 2021, despite the ongoing pandemic and countless existing issues creating barriers to accessing our parks for Californians, the education center was finally used for its original purposes: education. Among the glassy waves and misty wisp of fog flowing down the coast of California, state park lifeguards can be seen floating in kayaks and on rescue boards accompanied by 15 K-12 educators inspired to care for and protect our state’s precious natural, cultural, and historic resources.

The California State Parks PORTS Program (Parks Online Resources for Teachers and Students)® has always recognized teachers as allies in our efforts to share our parks with the public. Since 2004, PORTS has provided LIVE, FREE virtual field trip experiences for K-12 students learning in their virtual and in-person classrooms. Today, as a part of Parks Califronia’s effort to create routes to parks, the new passPORTS project, hopes to formalize our existing partnership with K-12 educators to reimagine the K-12 field trip through “blended-access.” More specifically, we hope to combine virtual and in-person opportunities to provide deep and meaningful, multitouch, sequential learning opportunities for our students in California State Parks. As a part of this project, PORTS is offering funding to open our doors for interdisciplinary learning opportunities nested in local, real-world issues for all K-12 students. As a part of this project, on September 25th at Refugio, these educators joined forces with California State Park interpreter Parker Grand of Refugio and Gaviota State Beaches, accompanied by PORTS coordinators Scott Shepherd and Brandon Caskey, with the mission to increase equitable and sustainable access to our parks.