Since 2014, we've created change by offering educational, hands on learning experiences, conservational opportunities about Monarch butterflies and pollinators, all with youth!
Background
Important Notice:
The Taos Eco Kids Club is on a hiatus at this time as I (Marielle) am a Senior in high school, and am going to the University of Redlands for college. My responsibilities as an athlete and student have made it difficult to organize meetings. I'm not sure what the future holds for the Taos Eco Kids Club, however its vision is something I will not relinquish. Thank you for your support and interest throughout the years. It has meant the world to me.
Sincerely,
Marielle Gomez, Founder and Director
© 2022 by the Taos Eco Kids Club
The Taos Eco Kids Club is on a hiatus at this time as I (Marielle) am a Senior in high school, and am going to the University of Redlands for college. My responsibilities as an athlete and student have made it difficult to organize meetings. I'm not sure what the future holds for the Taos Eco Kids Club, however its vision is something I will not relinquish. Thank you for your support and interest throughout the years. It has meant the world to me.
Sincerely,
Marielle Gomez, Founder and Director
© 2022 by the Taos Eco Kids Club
About the Creator, Marielle Gomez
Marielle Gomez is a student from Taos Pueblo. She is the daughter of Anne-Marie Emanuelli who is French, and a retired teacher and founder of Mindful Frontiers, and Bruce Gomez who is Diné and Tiwa, a retired teacher, and the current head coach of the Taos Tigers Cross Country Team. Marielle's traditional Tiwa names are nah-oo-tseul-poi-meh-ee which means "Yellow Aspen Leaves Blowing," and teum-hah-loom-bpop which means "Morning Flower," and her Diné name, Nizhoni, which is a special word that means "beauty of all things" in Navajo. Marielle is the founder of the Taos Eco Kids Club, has been raising Monarchs since 2015, and has won the AISES National Junior Division Science Fair for her project "The Magic of the Monarch Butterfly." She was invited to present her knowledge/work with as part of the Summer Lecture Series at the BLM's Wild Rivers Recreation Area. Since, she's connected with lots of other scientists along the way, including Miguel Santistevan, who helped her create the pollinator garden at Taos Charter School, and especially Butterflier/Scientist and Author, Steve Cary, who she's partnered with for the club's Annual Monarch Butterfly Tagging Workshop. Marielle is a hard working senior at Taos High School, and is going to attend undergrad at the University of Redlands. She has plans to pursue a degree in Environmental Science, and a possible double major in Art. She has also been recruited to and will be competing on the collegiate Cross-Country and Track Team team at the University of Redlands. Marielle has many interests and passions. She is passionate about running, and has qualified to eight State Championships: five in Cross-Country with the Taos XC team, and three in Track and Field; two for the 4x800 meter relay, and once for the 800 meters. She has also received a 4th place medal for the 4x800 meter relay at the State Championship level in her senior year. Marielle also ran in Junior Olympics during middle school, and has been to two National competitions. Marielle looks forward to succeeding at the collegiate level. Marielle also enjoys photography and art, and experimenting with creative ideas. She hopes to pursue her dreams in science, as well as hiking and traveling the world and continuing her running career. She wants to qualify to the Olympics and wants to win a gold medal so that she can be the first Native American woman to win an Olympic gold medal so that she can inspire other Indigenous athletes. Marielle has created an online portfolio which showcases her high school art portfolio, and also information about her. If you would like to learn more, visit: nizhoniemanuelle.wixsite.com/portfolio She also posts her art projects on her art Instagram account: @mariellesart___ Photos:
Top Photo: Marielle jumping on the top of a mountain on a hike to Gold Hill in Taos. Bottom Photo: Marielle running at the 2021 State Championship meet at Albuquerque, New Mexico. This year was the second year she got All Districts at the District Meet. Left photo: Marielle photographs her dad, Bruce Gomez, looking at one of the Monarchs she raised and released in 2020. |
How the Club Started
Growing up, Marielle has always been passionate about the environment and making some sort of positive change towards helping the Earth. She believes that it is in the hands of the people that live on this Earth to save it. "All of Nature on this earth is all we have and we need to save it for the next generation and the generations after that," she said. Environmental issues will have the greatest affect on the Next Generation, or the Youth, of the Earth. They will be here for at least another 80 years, while adults will only be her for about another 50 years. That's a big difference! Like many have all said: the next generation (youth) are going to be the ones to save Earth.
So, the Taos Eco Kids Club was created. The Taos Eco Kids Club is a youth club/group that was created by Marielle, who was 9 years old at the time, in 2014. She created the club with a dream: she wanted to spread the word that the Earth is in big trouble. The club's motto is: "We Explore, We Preserve, and We Inform." The purpose of the club is to involve the youth in creating change for the Earth through conservation projects and activities, with a focus on helping Monarch Butterflies and pollinators. Marielle started by inviting my friends to activities such as planting flowers, picking up trash, and learning about current events. Eventually, Marielle started the "Taos Eco Kids Corner" which was an informational poster at Cid's Food Market, where she would update with information related to the things that the club worked on during activities. Eventually, members of the community started getting in touch with Marielle to help or collaborate on activities.
In 2017, Marielle decided to create a pollinator garden at Taos Charter School. With grant funding from the the Native Plant Society of Taos, and the Los Jardineros Garden Club, and with the help of Miguel Santistevan, founder of Biodynamics Association in Taos, the pollinator garden was built. Marielle researched plants that were the most beneficial to pollinators and invited school children from TCS to get together on a Saturday to plant the flower bed. The school's maintenance person installed a drip irrigation system. There were about twelve children who showed up to plant and the garden is still there. The school has reported tons of new pollinators coming to the garden, and "it makes the school look really pretty," said teacher Sally Greywolf.
As mentioned before, she's been raising Monarchs since 2015 and won the AISES National Junior Science fair with her project "The Magic of the Monarch Butterfly". It was such a life changing experience that since then, Monarchs has become one of her biggest passions in life. Marielle releases her reared Monarchs with members every year. In 2017, she got in touch with a member of the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge who introduced Marielle to Steve Cary, a scientist from Santa Fe working with the Southwest Monarch Study, by another scientist working with the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge with their Monarch projects. Since then, she's invited Steve to come and do a workshop on how Monarchs are tagged in the wild. It's become our most successful project and youth love it! In 2019, she was invited to present her knowledge/work with as part of the Summer Lecture Series at the BLM's Wild Rivers Recreation Area.
Marielle also also designed this club's website, and in 2020, created an online course on how to raise Monarchs, which I am planning to turn into an E-Book.
Future projects include: project on how to identify Monarch eggs to raise, creating more pollinator gardens around town, planting trees, picking up trash, and more! (A list of ideas are on the Home Page). The club is open to any youth (kids and teens ages 7-16) of the Taos, NM area interested in nature and earth, and is active during the summer and during Monarch season (early August/September-mid October).
Growing up, Marielle has always been passionate about the environment and making some sort of positive change towards helping the Earth. She believes that it is in the hands of the people that live on this Earth to save it. "All of Nature on this earth is all we have and we need to save it for the next generation and the generations after that," she said. Environmental issues will have the greatest affect on the Next Generation, or the Youth, of the Earth. They will be here for at least another 80 years, while adults will only be her for about another 50 years. That's a big difference! Like many have all said: the next generation (youth) are going to be the ones to save Earth.
So, the Taos Eco Kids Club was created. The Taos Eco Kids Club is a youth club/group that was created by Marielle, who was 9 years old at the time, in 2014. She created the club with a dream: she wanted to spread the word that the Earth is in big trouble. The club's motto is: "We Explore, We Preserve, and We Inform." The purpose of the club is to involve the youth in creating change for the Earth through conservation projects and activities, with a focus on helping Monarch Butterflies and pollinators. Marielle started by inviting my friends to activities such as planting flowers, picking up trash, and learning about current events. Eventually, Marielle started the "Taos Eco Kids Corner" which was an informational poster at Cid's Food Market, where she would update with information related to the things that the club worked on during activities. Eventually, members of the community started getting in touch with Marielle to help or collaborate on activities.
In 2017, Marielle decided to create a pollinator garden at Taos Charter School. With grant funding from the the Native Plant Society of Taos, and the Los Jardineros Garden Club, and with the help of Miguel Santistevan, founder of Biodynamics Association in Taos, the pollinator garden was built. Marielle researched plants that were the most beneficial to pollinators and invited school children from TCS to get together on a Saturday to plant the flower bed. The school's maintenance person installed a drip irrigation system. There were about twelve children who showed up to plant and the garden is still there. The school has reported tons of new pollinators coming to the garden, and "it makes the school look really pretty," said teacher Sally Greywolf.
As mentioned before, she's been raising Monarchs since 2015 and won the AISES National Junior Science fair with her project "The Magic of the Monarch Butterfly". It was such a life changing experience that since then, Monarchs has become one of her biggest passions in life. Marielle releases her reared Monarchs with members every year. In 2017, she got in touch with a member of the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge who introduced Marielle to Steve Cary, a scientist from Santa Fe working with the Southwest Monarch Study, by another scientist working with the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge with their Monarch projects. Since then, she's invited Steve to come and do a workshop on how Monarchs are tagged in the wild. It's become our most successful project and youth love it! In 2019, she was invited to present her knowledge/work with as part of the Summer Lecture Series at the BLM's Wild Rivers Recreation Area.
Marielle also also designed this club's website, and in 2020, created an online course on how to raise Monarchs, which I am planning to turn into an E-Book.
Future projects include: project on how to identify Monarch eggs to raise, creating more pollinator gardens around town, planting trees, picking up trash, and more! (A list of ideas are on the Home Page). The club is open to any youth (kids and teens ages 7-16) of the Taos, NM area interested in nature and earth, and is active during the summer and during Monarch season (early August/September-mid October).
Photos from our first Monarch Tagging workshop in 2017.
"All of Nature on this Earth is all we have and we need to save it for the next generation and the generations after that."
- Marielle Gomez, Founder and Director
Our Mission
One of the coolest, fascinating, beautiful, and inspiring local nature creatures are endangered: Monarch butterflies and pollinators. Unfortunately, they've been endangered for a while now. But together, we all can help. Our mission is to educate, inspire, and motivate youth to go outdoors and explore the many things it has to offer such as Monarchs and pollinators, and teaching them exactly how to save them.
Our projects and workshops offer youth an opportunity to experience and learn about our local nature and creatures that exist through our educational and hands on projects. Along with our own projects, we work with local organizations and classrooms to help bring these experiences to more young people. Our work inspires youth to make a change, and shows them exactly how they can do so. |
Our Mission Statement
We Explore We Preserve We Inform |
Photos from the pollinator garden created at Taos Charter School in 2017 with students.
Our Work
Our work focuses mainly around the conservation of Monarch butterflies and pollinators, but also includes working in other conservation areas too. Through our projects, we're able to offer youth the opportunity to experience studying and working closely with these creatures, and also let them learn about how they can help save them, and inspire them to keep that legacy strong! The club is active during Monarch and pollinator season (spring to late summer/early fall).
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Monarch Butterflies
We work with scientists, local organizations, and classrooms to create fun hands on learning conservational projects about Monarch butterflies, just for youth! Some of our projects include: Monarch tagging out in the field, milkweed planting, finding Monarch eggs to raise, etc. Through our projects, we're introducing youth to the beauty and curiosity of their local nature, teaching them how to "save the world," and help Monarchs recover, right in our own backyard! We also provide information and resources to people who are interested in doing these kinds of projects on their own!
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Pollinators
With the help of local organizations, scientists, students, and staff, we created a beautiful pollinator garden at Taos Charter School. We plan on continuing this legacy and have been in contact with scientists and organizations and schools who we are planning on collaborating with in the future on some more pollinator projects. Some of these plans include: more pollinator gardens around town and schools, create Monarch way stations, and wildlife habitats. This is just a few of our plans, as we have more pollinator projects in mind.
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The Environment
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Let us know if you have any ideas, and if if you would like to collaborate or bring one of these projects to your school/organization!
Big thanks to...
Steve Cary
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Miguel Santistevan
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Jeremy Jones
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Kathy Black
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Susie Fiore
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Tim Long
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Taos Charter School
Cultural Energy KCEI 90.1 FM
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Wild and Scenic Rivers Visitor Center
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Field Institute of Taos
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Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge
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Native Plant Society of New Mexico
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Los Jardineros Garden Club
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Cid's Food Market
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Taos News
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Parents, Students, and Staff.
Without you guys, we wouldn't have been able to make this possible.
How to Get Involved
The club is open to any youth (kids and teens ages 7-16) of the Taos, NM area. To join, all you need to do is fill out our quick form. No fees or payment needed, this is all just passion! If you're an adult who is interested in helping out with the club, you are totally welcome! No need to fill out the form, just email us letting us know your'e interested. We get new activities and project ideas all the time so join the club to become part of them and get notified as soon as they arise!
If you would like to collaborate with our club such as with your organization, or classroom, we would be happy to discuss with you! Please feel free to email or call us to talk about these ideas!
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