News Release

Getting Kids Active and Engaged with History and Nature

Bay Area Explorer badge.

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News Release Date: August 19, 2019

Contact: Morgan Smit, 415-859-6797

San Francisco, CA – Looking for something to do outdoors with your family? Become a “Secret Agent” and explore local parks with the Agents of Discovery®, an educational mobile app-based game. Adventurers will unlock hidden geo-located challenges, solve entertaining trivia questions, and earn prizes!

The National Park Service, USDA, Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Santa Clara County Parks, and California State Parks are collaborating on an initiative to get kids exploring the outdoors. Under the Bay Area Explorer Campaign, these partners are all using Agents of Discovery®, to turn a trip to the park into an exciting, augmented reality game.

Kids and their families can use the mobile app to download free “Missions” at all of the nine participating sites in the greater Bay Area including San Francisco, Santa Clara, Vallejo, and San Jose. As kids explore, they solve educational “Challenges” (questions) about nature and history. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park offers children two missions: exploring the fleet of historic vessels at Hyde Street Pier, or adventuring along the San Francisco waterfront (including the Maritime Museum).

The Bay Area Explorer Campaign, which kicks-off August 19th, includes incentives for young explorers, or Agents, to interact with the real world around them. When an Agent completes a Mission they receive both a digital and an embroidered badge specific to that site - the more Missions completed at different sites, the more rewards Agents can earn!

“We are pleased to offer kids and parents a new way to discover their local parks,” said Morgan Smith, Chief of Interpretation at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. “The Bay Area Explorer Campaign brings together great partners who all use technology to create adventures for families.”

Participating sites include: Vasona Lake Park, Martial Cottle Park, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, Hyde Street Pier, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Seacliff State Beach, and Blue Rock Springs Park. 

To download the free Agents of Discovery app, go to Google Play or the App Store. Once downloaded, find the participating site’s Mission within the app and hit “Play” before you head out. No data or WiFi is required to download or play the Mission once it has been downloaded.

About the Partners

Agents of Discovery

Agents of Discovery, winner of the 2016 Best App-Based Game at the European Conference on Game Based Learning, is an innovative educational tech platform that utilizes web, mobile and the latest in augmented reality technologies to get kids active and learning about the world around them. Agents of Discovery provides educators with a unique way to gamify information, incentivizing kids to be active while learning and exploring. The easy-to-use Mission Maker allows educators to pull challenges from their extensive Agency Library or to create customized content specific to their site. Educators can then easily publish Missions for kids to complete on tablets or their own smart devices. For more information, please visit 
 
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
 
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the oldest federal conservation agency, tracing its lineage back to 1871, and the only agency in the federal government whose primary responsibility is management of fish and wildlife for the American public. The Service helps ensure a healthy environment for people by providing opportunities for Americans to enjoy the outdoors and our shared natural heritage.
 
U.S. Forest Service:

The U.S. Forest Service is a multi-faceted agency that manages and protects 154 national forests and 20 grasslands in 43 states and Puerto Rico. Within the Pacific Northwest, the Forest Service works to protect and improve over 20 million acres of public land. The agency’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The Forest Service augments its work through partnerships with public and private agencies to support, natural resource conservation, outdoor education, recreation, rural communities, local economies, fish and wildlife, and much more! Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the Forest Service, summed up the mission of the Forest Service: "to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run."
 
California State Parks
California’s state parks and the recreational programs supported by the California Department of Parks and Recreation and its divisions of Boating and Waterways, Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation, and Office of Historic Preservation, are gateways to these benefits and to opportunities to connect with families, friends, and communities. With 280 state park units, over 340 miles of coastline, 970 miles of lake and river frontage, 15,000 campsites, and 4,500 miles of trails, the department contains the largest and most diverse recreational, natural, and cultural heritage holdings of any state agency in the nation. Together, state park system lands protect and preserve an unparalleled collection of culturally and environmentally sensitive structures and habitats, threatened plant and animal species, ancient Native American sites, historic structures and artifacts... the best of California's natural and cultural history.

Santa Clara County Parks

County Park’s six decade legacy of providing outstanding recreational opportunities in beautiful natural locations has resulted in one of the largest regional park systems in the California. Since the first County parkland was acquired in 1924, the Santa Clara County park system has grown to include 28 regional parks encompassing over 52,000 acres of land.

National Park Service

The National Park Service (NPS), an agency under the Department of the Interior, manages a wide variety of over 419 units including national parks, national monuments and national seashores. The NPS is charged with both preserving the ecological and historical integrity of parks while also making them accessible for public use and enjoyment. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, located at the west end of Fisherman’s Wharf, includes a fleet of historic ships, Visitor Center, Maritime Museum, Maritime Research Center, and the Aquatic Park Historic District. For more information, please call 415-447-5000 or visit nps.gov/safr, Twitter @SFMaritimeNPS, and Facebook @SanFranciscoMaritimeNHP