Postcard from the Ballona Creek Watershed
Table of Contents: Place and Resilience in Sustainability Education, April 2016
Growing up in Los Angeles, I never saw it as a place where nature lived—I spent most of my time at home with my family. When I moved away, I would tell people it was a concrete wasteland—season-less, ugly palm trees, a sad concrete river, endless cars and freeways, smog. My only sense of place is that it was somewhere I didn’t want to live. Fast-forward ten years, I am back and rediscovering this city, thanks in great part to my dissertation research that got me out into places like Kenneth Hahn. Following schools tours in the park, I too became a student, learning the difference between native and invasive plants, how to spot hawks with binoculars, and how to use a compass to locate myself in this broader landscape of geology, oil, water, and people. With the students, I learned to see see myself as part of the Ballona Creek Watershed, and how my actions in this place mattered. Through my research, and very much like the students of these environmental education programs I studied, seeing and experiencing the interconnected human and non-human lives and geographies in this urban wild place gave me a sense of place, belonging, and responsibility to Los Angeles I never knew I could have.
Nicole Lawson is a PhD Candidate at UCLA, studying cultural and environmental anthropology. Her dissertation examines environmental education in Los Angeles, looking at how it works to construct sense of place and environmental citizenship among minority youth. She also studied Anthropology for her B.A. at Yale University, after which she working in the education sector in Paris, France for 4 years. In her spare time she enjoys gardening, raising chickens for eggs, and spending time with family 
Greetings Nicole Lawson:
I have been an environmental educator for 23 years since 1993 in Los Angeles County.
I grew up in LA but I was born in Amsterdam, Holland, Nederland in 1956, so English is my second language and I am an immigrant.
I earned two university degrees at CSUN in Environmental Biology and Geography with minors in Geology and Anthropology in 1986.
Currently, I am the president of the Ballona Institute and the Lorquin Entomological Society.
I am employed as a park supervisor and do environmental education at Alondra Park for the Department of Parks and Recreation with the County of Los Angeles.
Perhaps I can meet you and give you a tour of Alondra Park and Ballona Wetlands.
I am interested to read your dissertation in progress as well as hearing any presentations or lectures you may be sharing in the future.
Peace,
Roy