NATURALISTS AND DIVERS
Phase 2 of the Conservation Leadership Program invites students to deepen their ocean connection through two immersive summer pathways: Naturalists and Divers. Through field exploration, wetland observation, storytelling, ocean safety, and scuba training, students build hands-on skills while discovering different ways to know, care for, and protect coastal and marine ecosystems.
Resetting Baselines: Stories from Land and Sea
Inspired by National Geographic Pristine Seas, both the Naturalists and Divers pathways use storytelling to help students “reset baselines” and imagine healthier futures for local ocean ecosystems. By building naturalist and diver skills, students learn to observe closely from both land and underwater, gather evidence, notice what others may overlook, and tell richer stories about biodiversity, change, and recovery. Through diverse perspectives – from scientists, divers, naturalists, community members, and cultural knowledge holders – students connect what they see today with what these places once supported and what they could become again.
Naturalists
Led by National Geographic Explorer Dr. Brittney Beck, a scientist and educator, the Conservation Leadership Naturalists Program brought students to three San Diego County wetlands: Tijuana River Estuary, Kendall-Frost Salt Marsh, and Buena Vista Lagoon. Students also learned from a guest storytelling session with National Geographic Explorer Sophie Dia Pegrum, a filmmaker and storyteller. Through slow observation, nature journaling, field notes, species identification, photography, and storytelling, students explored wetlands as living classrooms for biodiversity, history, community, and ocean connection. Each site offered a different way to understand wetlands – from border watersheds and salt marsh habitat to coastal lagoon restoration – helping students see these places as complex, beautiful, and worth protecting.
TRNERR
Kendall Frost
Buena Vista
STORIES OF CHANGE
As part of the course, students reflected on what spoke most to them during the week and transformed those observations into short videos created in a single day. This example was created by Vivian Zhang, a Conservation Leadership Program Naturalist from the Summer 2026 cohort, and highlights how youth can use storytelling to share what they notice, value, and want others to see.
