The Cooper Center for Environmental Learning
The Cooper Center for Environmental Learning is a partnership between the University of Arizona College of Education and Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). The Cooper Center helps students gain ecological knowledge and a connection to nature by participating in science and Earth education programs. While visiting “Camp Cooper” in the scenic Tucson Mountains, students gain an appreciation for the Sonoran Desert and are inspired to make more sustainable lifestyle choices. In addition to serving TUSD students, the Cooper Center for Environmental Learning offers retreats and workshops for teachers, interns, and graduate students.
To learn more, visit https://coopercenter.arizona.edu.
The Five Seasons Garden
Compost Cats partnered with the Cooper Center to create The Five Seasons Garden, a Compost Demonstration Site for K-12 students in TUSD. This site consists of a native pollinator garden, a native foods garden, a water harvesting system, a bee bath, a seed library, educational signage, and a compost tumbler.
The pollinator garden gives students the opportunity to observe and understand how insects aid in important plant processes, such as reproduction and strengthening native plant populations in the surrounding area. The native food garden inspires sustainable food-sourcing practices and facilitates lessons about the traditions of the Indigenous peoples in the Sonoran Desert.
The compost tumblers interactively introduce compost education by using the food waste students produce on-site. This food waste is transformed into compost that is used to nourish the soil used to grow the food and the pollinator plants in the garden. This model allows us to come full circle and have a closed system at Cooper Center, where the food waste created by students and visitors is converted into compost that aids in growing more food.
Education and Outreach at Camp Cooper
Working alongside the passionate and experienced educators from Cooper Center, the Compost Cats deliver an educational curriculum to K-12 TUSD students that incorporates compost education with the Cooper Center's mission of teaching love for desert ecological systems. When they are taught the concept of composting and its impacts, students are encouraged to investigate connections between other systems that they may not have noticed before. For example, compost is a nutrient-rich soil that can impact countless other systems, including enriching pollinator plants that, in turn, attract pollinating insects, who help to increase the health of the garden’s entire ecosystem.
Compost Cats use the hands-on learning tools from our demo site, materials provided by Cooper Center, and lesson plans created by our Environmental Educational Specialists to teach students the basics of composting. After learning about the countless connections created through composting, the impact humans have on the environment, and the health of the ecosystems around them, students are better able to draw connections between themselves and the other lesson plans taught at Cooper Center.
Compost Cats will continue giving lessons about composting for TUSD field trips. We also plan to collaborate with Cooper Center to provide our educational services for outreach events they plan to host in the future.