Park rangers are bringing nature lessons to schools

Amid the government shutdown, some earn money by teaching young students.

- BY JENNY GOLD

Photographs by PAUL KURODA For The Times

ADRIAN BOONE, a Muir Woods National Monument ranger, shows preschoolers a California bay laurel leaf.

On a sunny morning, 17 students from a preschool here in Marin County huddle as close as possible to furloughed interpretive park ranger Adrian Boone of the Muir Woods National Monument.

But this is no field trip. Instead, Boone has come to the outdoor classroom at the Ross Preschool, a half-hour drive from the park. He's part of a special program to bring furloughed rangers into local schools during the shutdown of the federal government, which caused Muir Woods to close its gates.

“WE want to give these students just an idea that they live in a special area,” Boone said of redwoods.

Their small faces are riveted as he passes around a leaf from a California bay laurel tree. “What do you think it smells like?” he asks them.

“Stinky?” suggests one small blond boy.

“Bubble gum?” asks a girl.

“A cookie!” shouts a child wearing a paper owl crown.

“The fun thing about this leaf is it grows in a redwood.

"WE want to give these students just an idea that they live in a special area," Boone said of redwoods forest,” he tells them. “The Native Americans would use this for medicine. If they had acold and they were stuffed up, they would make tea with it.”

Normally, Boone would be doing what national park rangers do everyday — protecting the park, helping visitors enjoy the outdoors, ensuring public safety and answering questions. But with the federal shutdown now dragging out to 29 days, some furloughed rangers are putting their skills to other uses, including taking environmental education to classrooms.