Written by: Salomé Arrieta, Campus Sustainability Fund Committee member.
Just seven miles west of Downtown Tucson, bordering the Tucson Mountain Park, sits the monumental Cooper Center. For sixty years the Cooper Center for Environmental Learning has been educating Tucson’s youth using hands-on experiential learning. Serving over three thousand students a year, the Cooper Center seeks to empower students from disenfranchised communities to explore the realm of sustainability by working with local Title I schools.
Camp Cooper offers a variety of different programing for age groups Pre-K to 5th grade, including both day trips and overnight experiences. The ‘Earth Keepers Program’ designed for 4th and 5th graders is a three-day two-night excursion paired with in class activities designed to help students make both a scientific and emotional connection to the Sonoran Desert.
The Cooper Center is staffed by a tightknit team of eight people and three interns. This year, with support from the Campus Sustainability Fund, the Cooper Center hired an undergraduate intern at the University of Arizona to support the team's educational staff. Meet Maria Fernanda, a senior double majoring in Sustainable Built Environments and French!
In this Q & A, Maria discusses her work at the Cooper Center as well as her personal connections to sustainability and environmental education.
Walk me through your day. What does your average workday and week look like at the cooper center?
I get to camp around 7:30 a.m., the staff chats about the plan for the day. If we have a day trip, we set up everything at 9:30 a.m. and wait for the kids to get there. Once the kids arrive, we do orientation and go on the hike. The program depends on the age group. Right now, we have a three-day program that is completely different and super fun.
What have you learned about yourself and or educating since taking this position?
I have learned that there are many different ways to approach environmental learning, and I have loved learning the way Cooper Center does it. Teaching at Cooper Center is based on providing the kids with experiences and sharing knowledge through those experiences. Many of the kids are experiencing the desert for the first time when coming to Cooper and seeing how connected and engaged they get truly shows how effective the programs and the methods are at the center.
What is your favorite or most rewarding aspect of your position? Why?
I love engaging with the kids and learning with them. It excites me to learn new stuff every day, especially when it relates to the space that surrounds me. It is amazing seeing kids excited about nature and falling in love with it.
What skills do you hope to develop or expand upon with the remainder of this experience?
I hope to learn how all the programs are run, which will happen next semester [Spring 2025]. I feel very confident with day trips, but I am still new to the Earth Keepers program.
How do you anticipate this experience influencing how you might approach the future of your undergraduate education or future career?
I think it is always important to know and be aware of the different methods of learning, no matter what realm you are moving into to develop your career. This I believe will be the most beneficial in my future endeavors.