Environmental Learning Experiences for Undergraduates

The Cooper Center for Environmental Learning (Cooper Center) is an outreach project of the College of Education, focused on educating and inspiring people of all ages to live more lightly on the Earth through campus outreach, community events, professional development for current and future educators, and research.  

The Cooper Center seeks to engage University of Arizona undergraduate students directly in ways that will inspire them to act more sustainably and to share their personal knowledge and experience with the children of Southern Arizona. With the support from the Campus Sustainability Fund, Cooper Center will re-establish two student worker positions. These students will have the opportunity to work closely with Cooper Center’s full-time educators to learn their field trip programs and engage with children from Southern Arizona schools such as Tucson Unified School District. These students will then take on leadership roles in the activities done at the Cooper Center, with assistance from their full-time staff members. Cooper Center’s Pre-K-12 programs combine key ecological understandings with immersive experiences that foster a love of the Sonoran Desert for each child that are age-appropriate and student-centered.  

Throughout their position of 30 weeks, each student worker will share their experiences at Camp Cooper to highlight their work on campus with students, faculty, staff, and in the broader community.  The goal for this project is to pilot these experiences and highlight these positions for new donors in the future to have student workers annually.