Ventura County STEM – Highlighting a federal program providing free passes to national parks for fourth graders across the country in 2016, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and U.S. Representative. Lois Capps of Santa Barbara distributed free park passes to more than 90 fourth graders from the Grace Thille School in Santa Paula as they headed on a boat trip to Channel Islands National Park last month. The trip was partially funded by Channel Islands Park Foundation, a partner of VC STEM.

The federal program, Every Kid in A Park, allows fourth graders nationwide to obtain a pass for free entry for them and their families to more than 2,000 federally managed lands and waters nationwide for an entire year starting September 1, 2015 – August 30, 2016. Please share this opportunity widely with your ecosystems – go to https://www.everykidinapark.gov/about/ and scroll down to Tools to download posters and brochures in English and Spanish, and Press for a downloadable media kit.