Crystal Cove Alliance

Crystal Cove Conservancy is the nonprofit public benefit partner to Crystal Cove State Park, employing a social enterprise model to fund important preservation, education, and conservation initiatives. Our mission is to restore the park, educate our future environmental leaders, and protect Crystal Cove, and places like it, for generations to come.

Crystal Cove Conservancy provides life-changing educational opportunities to students from all walks of life. Our ladder of K-12 environmental literacy programs exposes students to a variety of subjects and career opportunities they never considered.

The Conservancy was founded in 1999 to preserve the Crystal Cove Historic District, a collection of structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places and now publicly available for overnight stays. Proceeds from the Cottages and other concessions in the park are invested into our catalog of education programs and conservation efforts, supplementing donations from the community.

All of Orange County’s schools are filled with talented students, but not all of them have access to the experiences that inspire them to pursue STEM careers. By subsidizing the cost of field trips and meals for students from Title I schools, we make it possible for students—10,000 of them just this year—to dream bigger than they ever knew they could.

Our programs have already made an impact. For example, this year, we met someone who joined our field trips for the second time. Her first visit was as a student, and the second was with her students as a science teacher. She told us that our program inspired her to pursue a career in STEM education. To meet the challenges caused by the changing climate, the world is going to need every teacher, scientist, and environmentalist it can get. We inspire them every day.

How do we do it? We believe the best way to learn science is by doing science. Students coming to Crystal Cove learn alongside scientists and engineers, and the data they gather contributes to research, environmental monitoring, and ecological restoration projects. They aren’t just watching science in action—they’re doing it. Post-program evaluations from our field trips and internships show that students are understanding how to use the scientific method—and they’re reporting an increased interest in STEM careers, too. Many of these young minds will go on to be the scientists and leaders who address the growing list of challenges facing places like Crystal Cove.

Crystal Cove State Park is beloved for its beauty—but its value goes far below the surface. The species that live here—California gnatcatchers, cactus wrens, orange-throated whiptail lizards, among many others—have nowhere else to go. Coastal sage scrub is found in California only and faces constant development pressure due to its desirable climate and location. Add the damage caused by droughts, invasive species, and fires, and it becomes clear why Crystal Cove needs you.

Your support means we can continue to grow and develop our environmental literacy programs to meet the needs of more students, teachers, and schools. It will help us build The Conservancy’s capacity to lead conservation programming in the park, like volunteer monitoring programs and community stewardship events, as well as engaging Indigenous-led groups to bring traditional land practices back to the Cove.

90% of Crystal Cove Conservancy's STEM education program participants come Orange County, and the remainder from surrounding counties.

Everyone who visits Crystal Cove finds something to love, and it’s our privilege to partner with our colleagues at State Parks to help safeguard it all and to inspire young people to continue to protect it for generations to come.

As students and visitors have returned to Crystal Cove State Park, we have witnessed a renewed passion for spending time in and learning about nature. During the pandemic, we launched 17 new distance learning programs. As word got out to teachers, we saw thousands more students participating in our programs, even as they learned from home. And as the world has opened back up, we are continuing to offer distance learning programs to schools across the country, to honor our mission of educating the next generation of environmental scientists.

The 2022-23 school year was the first full year of implementing our "Trouble With Trash" education program for students in grades K-2. A program that was introduced right before the pandemic was sidelined to online learning, but we were thrilled to welcome young learners on-site to explore Crystal Cove's beach and tidepools, while helping students learn about the human impact on ecosystems including how best to protect Crystal Cove’s beaches from plastic pollution.

Our efforts together have ensured that students can continue to work as scientists on conservation projects, that important habitat restoration work continues and that all of those things we each love about the Cove remain forever protected.

Thank you for all you do to protect and restore Crystal Cove.

See you around the Park,
Kate Wheeler, President & CEO

Crystal Cove Conservancy restores and protects the diverse ecosystems within the iconic Crystal Cove State Park. Through the work of our education team, the 3.2 miles of sandy beaches, 400 acres of coastal bluffs, 2,400 acres of backcountry habitat in Moro Canyon, and an 1,100-acre offshore Marine Protected Area have become an ideal outdoor classroom and learning laboratory for young environmental scientists, from kindergarten through college.

While our local conservation and education efforts matter, we know that the challenges presented by climate change and human impact on the earth aren’t going to be solved by Crystal Cove Conservancy alone. To address and ideally reverse these impacts requires collaboration across industries and sectors, the region, and the world—an approach that reflects the fact that we are all connected. Just as a disaster like a fire or an oil spill can spread, so can our coordinated efforts to make positive change.

That’s why Crystal Cove Conservancy is positioning itself as a critical node in an expansive, interconnected web of people and organizations working to ensure that we can reverse climate change, adapt in the ways we need to, and mitigate the impacts we’re already seeing.

Together with researchers, engineers and education experts from UC Irvine, our staff and students are learning about and addressing coastal erosion, wildfire recovery, habitat restoration and the best ways for students to learn about and love science and nature—and we're sharing what we do across our networks to amplify our positive impact.

Crystal Cove Conservancy and everyone who cares about this place can be part of something bigger.

Teddie Ray
Chair of the Board of Directors