Community Partner Spotlight: National Park Trust Partnership

Baltimore Curriculum Project (BCP) has numerous local and regional partners who are valued resources for our network of neighborhood conversion charter schools. Our community partners help BCP students, educators, and our school communities thrive in and out of the classroom.

Frederick Elementary School (FES) began participating in the National Park Trust Partnership (NPTP) Buddy Bison program in 2017, the year that FES opened. FES Media Specialist Jillian Zarra, who is equally passionate about the environment as she is about reading and literature, has been working with the NPTP since 2018 to plan the field trips.

The Buddy Bison program offers fully funded field trips, including bus transportation and park entrance fees, to parks and public lands for Title I schools to enhance classroom curriculum through outdoor learning. FES students are among the 14,000-plus U.S. students annually who enjoy the field trips. 

How the National Park Trust Partnership Works at Frederick Elementary

During the first few weeks of school, Ms. Zarra and the NPTP Education Coordinator discuss field trip plans for the year. Each grade enjoys a field trip (see below). 

The NPTP also supplied ten bags of soil, garden gloves, and gardening tools for the FES Teaching Garden, which is supported by the school’s student Green Team and overseen by Ms. Zarra. 

“This partnership has been so amazing for FES,” says Ms. Zarra. “These field trips offer our students experiences that build real-world understanding, connect school subjects together, and support different learning styles”

She adds, “These trips reinforce my message of wanting to educate our students about respecting nature and creating environmental awareness for our city and their community.  Many field trip activities involve group discussions, teamwork, helping students practice communication and cooperation which are all strategies that are encompassed in our school pillars; wisdom, leadership, and community.”  

The 2025-2026 Field Trips

Pre-Kindergarten – First Grade: An “in house” trip with an Irvine Nature Center school visit with live animals (frogs, snakes, turtles, and a rabbit).

2nd Grade: May visit to Masonville Cove to learn about the parts of a plant. Students dissected a seed and then used microscopes to look at the parts; They also took at nature walk to learn about native and invasive plants that grow in Maryland.

3rd Grade:  Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center in mid-May for outdoor activities centered about teamwork and leadership, including a ropes course and other brain-strategy games to solve as teams like working together to build a house in the woods.  

4th Grade: Fall canoeing trip to explore the Dundee Creek and admire all the fall foliage, turtles, and egrets. 

5th Grade:  Late spring trip to Oregon Ridge Nature Center to culminate the grade’s yearlong science unit, “Save the Bay.” They connected a lot of what they learned during that unit to what they see at Oregon Ridge, including examining the pH levels of the water, testing its murkiness, and using nets to see what they could scoop up in the water.

NEW NPTP opportunity for Frederick Elementary!

This year, NPTP has chosen FES for a special opportunity. Each year, they choose a school to have two 5th graders present the annual Bruce F. Vento Public Service Award at the NPTP awards on June 3rd in Washington, D.C.

The award honors a public official who has displayed outstanding work to protect our parks, public lands, and natural resources. This year’s honoree is Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.

FES students Kinzy Moore and Julian Grice will deliver a 2-3 minute speech about their experiences in the Buddy Bison program and about Senator Capito. NPTP staff will work with the students and their families on their speech writing and delivery and are covering the cost of travel to D.C. for the students and 2-3 family members. 

Thank you, National Parks Trust Partnership, for your support of Frederick Elementary!