On Saturday January 21, SNAP Education staff participated in a Families in Nature event at Floyd Lamb City Park. The Families in Nature program takes families by bus, from the Winchester Cultural Center, out to a public lands site. The participants usually participate in three different activities in the morning, have pot luck lunch or grill out, and then in the afternoon enjoy the site with more education or a stewardship project. This Saturday, even though there were gusts up to 75 mph, there were 46 participants that attended the event. In the morning, the USFWS staff, Christianna Manville, John, Geri, Layloni, setup spotting scopes, handed out binoculars and talked to the families about the burrowing owl project. The participants were so excited to "meet a real scientist". The also went on a hike and learned how to use binoculars to spot wildlife. They saw some birds, two jackrabbits, and plenty of 'evidence' that animals live in the Mojave Desert. There was a burrowing owl that made an appearance! They actually got to see an owl in its burrow! The last activity was done in one of the historic buildings, thanks to Darren Copeland, City of Las Vegas. Who would have thought that dissecting owl pellets, which they thought was sooo gross when Ranger Amanda talked about it on the bus ride, would be sooo cool after they saw the owl and wanted to know what they would find in the pellets.  The group enjoyed their lunch in a group picnic site with some hot cocoa to stay warm. The volleyball net was set up and some participates played an intense 10 games of volleyball while others walked around Floyd Lamb enjoying the ponds, farmer's market, and other interesting areas of the park. Overall the owls and the Families in Nature families, did not mind the wind!

Afterwards some members of the group did a service project at the Boulder Campgrounds helping to spruce up the area around the amphitheater. REI funded the first of two workshops that will bring this diverse group of community members together to promote outdoor play and getting youth and their families outdoor exercising on a regular basis.

The Explore RV has taken to the road. In October it visited FWS Corn Creek and Tivoli Gardens in Summerlin. The first Friday in November it made a brief stop at the Interagency Office for the SNAP Board of Directors and staff to tour before heading to Logandale for the off-highway vehicle (OHV) Hump N Bump event and Pomegranate Festival - both staged at the Clark County Fairgrounds in Logandale.