Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Tour
Explore the 
stops on the virtual tour and then plan your own visit.
Educator Resources
The following collection of activities is designed to take what we learn about the Baldwin Hills into the world of scientific investigation. These activities focus on those aspects of the ecology and the environment most relevant to the ongoing activities in the Baldwin Hills: ecology, habitats and habitat restoration, and soil science.
- Introduction to the Baldwin Hills Classroom Science Education Projects
- Project #1: What's the Big Deal about Dirt?
- Project #2: Getting to the Roots about Roots
- Project #3: Seed Olympics (Even Plants Have to Leave the Nest)
- Project #4: Earth Movers
We have anticipated some of more likely questions you as a teacher or student may have:
Who are these activities designed for?
The following projects were written in a way that would be appropriate for the classroom teacher looking to extend the experiences of a fieldtrip to the Baldwin Hills into the classroom. However, the activities do not require a trip to the Baldwin Hills to make them viable as classroom exercises. A virtual visit to the Baldwin Hills via the website will suffice. These science activities may also serve as the basis for science fair projects.
The target grades for the projects are Grades 6 - 8, in accordance with the Science Framework for California Public Schools (Revised 2004). However, they can be easily adapted to both younger and older grades.
Are the materials difficult to get?
The activities were designed for teachers and students with very limited budgets. Certainly, all the materials required for all activities would cost less than $50. We did not want to assume everyone had access to expensive equipment such as microscopes or centrifuges, so we kept things simple without sacrificing the educational potential of the activities. If you are fortunate to have access to more complex laboratory equipment, these activities could easily be adapted to make use of them.
If you are a teacher or a student with a passion for science, it’s important to build and maintain you collection of scientific ‘stuff’. These materials will be your toolbox to take on any project. Part of the charm of doing science, just like in art, is the opportunity to repurpose objects and materials. You never know when you are going to need that coil of wire, that bag of cotton balls, or those old mayonnaise jars.
How should the activities be presented?
We recommend that these activities be incorporated in the framework of the Scientific Method, the philosophical basis of all of modern science. Consider the following procedure:
Step 1:
Students are introduced to the general concept (e.g., habitats and habitat restoration)Step 2:
General questions is posed to the students (e.g., What are some of the things that alter natural habitats and what would be the challenges in putting the habitat back together again?)Step 3:
Specific questions can be asked (e.g., what about the problem of non-native invaders such as weeds? Why do some kinds of plant, like weeds, spread so easily?)Step 4:
Hypothesis building (e.g., many plants possess effective ways of spreading seeds, such as the use of wind to carry seeds. Those seeds that stay aloft longest in the air has the greatest potential to spread)Step 5:
Designing and conducting experiments (i.e., Design and construct, and test various seed dispersal "parachutes")Step 6:
Examine results to see if they support the hypothesis (i.e., did the seeds with slowest rate of descent travel the farthest in the wind?)Step 7:
Modify your hypothesis, as necessary (i.e., The relationship between rate of descent and travel distance on applied to the cotton ball parachutes.)The Scientific Method may seem rigid and prescriptive. And it generally is supposed to be, being the basis of all modern science. However, in the classroom doing science can be simply posing interesting questions, making guesses as to what is going to happen, and testing your guesses with models and/or experiments. This simple view was enough to land probes on Mars, so it should be sufficient for the classroom. The real key to science in the classroom is a combination of really cool stories about the natural world and providing students the hands-on opportunity to do scientific experiments; the only way science is really done.
Wildlife of Sage Scrub Vegetation
The Baldwin Hills are home to coastal sage scrub, a plant community unique to southern California. Primairly made up of shrubs and perennial bunchgrasses, coastal sage scrub used to cover vast expanses of the lower elevation foothills and terraces, but urban development has reduced it to only a fraction of its original distribution. The Baldwin Hills represent the largest intact portion of this plant community in the Los Angeles Basin. Plants in this community were an important part of Native American culture, and the Baldwin Hills serves as an important refuge for wildlife.
The following slideshow is sample of some of the birds and insects that you may see inhabiting the Baldwin Hills, and for more information about the connection between plants and wildlife in the Baldwin Hills read the Baldwin Hills Park Lands Native Plant & Wildlife Garden Pamphlet (LA Audubon 2007).
A Brief History of the Baldwin Hills
If we could look back in time, we'd see the Baldwin Hills connected to the coast, the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the Santa Monica Mountains. More than a century ago, the Baldwin Hills were part of a vast system of scrubby, low-growing plants and grasslands, floodplains, woodlands and swamps.
Water flowed through this entire area into nearby Ballona Creek, which connected the hills and swamps to the saltwater marshes and coast. Within this vast floodplain, the Los Angeles River at times shifted course to flow west from what is now downtown, skirting the Baldwin Hills on its way through what today is Ballona Creek and then to the sea. The area north of the hills held extensive freshwater marshes that attracted many types of waterfowl and other wildlife, and the coastal saltwater marshes at Ballona Creek's mouth were a rich wildlife nursery. The Gabrielino Native Americans lived along Ballona Creek and built villages near streamside woodlands at the base of the Baldwin Hills. They depended on native plants for food, clothing and shelter, and used the creek to travel between the hills and the ocean.
But by the early 1900s, the freshwater marshes had been drained and filled in for agriculture and urban development, and by 1950, most of the saltwater marshes had been consumed by development as well.
Those stretches of grasslands and scrub, woodlands and wetlands are still represented in the Baldwin Hills, and water still flows from the hills into Ballona Creek and to the remaining marshes (the Ballona Wetlands) at the creek's mouth. Some of the hill's plant communities occur nowhere else but southern California, their traits having evolved to meet the demands of our specialized climate.
These natural areas are home to 166 species of birds, as well as dozens of species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects. These animals' survival depends on over 72 different species of plants native to the Baldwin Hills, and each one has a story of its own. Each living creature relates in a special way to the plants and other animals around it.
Excerpt on the history of the Baldwin Hills from "A Walk on the Wild Side:Plants & Animals of the Baldwin Hills (2001).
Native Garden at Kenneth Hahn SRA
Located in the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area of the Baldwin Hills, the Native and Wildlife Demonstration Garden offers another up-close glimpse of the native vegetation of the Baldwin Hills. Visit and enjoy the Self-Guided Tour! For more information before or after your visit, enjoy the Baldwin Hills Park Lands Native Plant & Wildlife Garden Pamphlet (LA Audubon 2007). While the Garden opened officially in 2006, it took a few years of support from the local community to help clear the site of plants not native to the area and to revegate it with members of the native coastal sage scrub plant community. Several organizations helped fund and manage this project, including the Baldwin Hills Conservancy, Los Angeles Audubon, the Los Angeles and Santa Monica chapters of the California Native Plant Society and Friends of Baldwin Hills.
Why was it so important to replace existing vegetation with navtive plants? Native plants are species that have adapted to live under local weather and soil conditions. Non-native or invasive plants are species that have been brought in from other regions, sometimes accidentally. Though they may look lush and green to us, non-native plants don't provide enough food or shelter for wildlife. In addition, they require a lot more water, fertilizers and pesticides than do native plants. Thoe goals of the Native Plant and Wildlife Garden are to provide habitat to wildlife, reduce the amount of water and chemicals used and to provide a beautiful garden for visitors to enjoy and study.
The Los Angeles Audubon Kenneth Hahn Native Plant and Wildlife Garden Education Program combines hands-on experience with instruction in both the classroom and at local wildlife habitat. Inner-city 3rd-6th grade students learn how to use binoculars, navigate with map and compass, and are encouraged to gain observational skills through science illustration and data collection. The program exposes young students from our urban core to the conceptual connections of biodiversity, water quality, and urbanization.
Volunteer Opportunities
There are several opportunities to become involved, including through California State Parks and either of the following Los Angeles Audubon Programs: the Baldwin Hills Restoration Leadership Program; and the Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Internship Program.
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