In April, as part of Earth Day and Earth Week at the University of Arizona, the Cooper Center participated in the Environmental Summit, organized by Students for Sustainability. The event featured several environmentally-minded guest speakers and organizations to promote the ideals of Earth Day – care for our planet and sustainable living. UArizona students, faculty, and staff learned about many initiatives both on and off campus to help individuals and groups establish simple, common sense practices to help sustain and protect our planet.

Our education staff are busy this summer jet-setting far and wide for Cooper! Summertime is an opportunity for our team to pursue professional development, attend conferences, and to introduce our educational programs to other outdoor classrooms and organizations. We take what we gain from these experiences and put it right back into our own environmental lessons and activities, too, making the Cooper Center an even more valuable learning resource for children and families, educators, and our greater community.

Earlier this month Cooper Center staff were invited to participate in Ben's Bells Camp Kind. This summer camp focuses on the importance of practicing kindness and compassion to one another and to all living things. These concepts are also at the heart of Camp Cooper’s educational philosophy, making this collaboration an excellent way to promote being kind to desert plants and animals and each other.

In honor of College of Education Dean Bruce Johnson stepping down from the role and returning to his environmental learning and earth education research, the College’s Advisory Board and Johnson’s family, friends, and colleagues sponsored Camp Cooper as a Ben’s Bells Kind Campus. Our friends at Natural Building Works erected a gorgeous rammed-earth wall along our entrance trail, and Ben’s Bells kindness tiles were added to create a large saguaro in bloom.

This new feature at Camp Cooper was unveiled during a May 6th event to celebrate Dean Johnson’s contributions to the College of Education and its work in the community, including the Cooper Center.

Camp Cooper Director Colin Waite has been busy! Not only did Colin prepare and present for SVP Fast Pitch (read below), but Colin also travelled to the Czech Republic to attend the World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC) last month.

The congress is a leading global network of those working to develop education for environment and sustainability. Colin represented Cooper Center, the University of Arizona, and Tucson Unified School District at WEEC, along with UArizona Research Scientist Dr. Corey Knox and College of Education Dean Bruce Johnson, who was a keynote speaker for the conference.

In April, as part of Earth Day and Earth Week at the University of Arizona, the Cooper Center participated in the Environmental Summit, organized by Students for Sustainability. The event featured several environmentally-minded guest speakers and organizations to promote the ideals of Earth Day – care for our planet and sustainable living. UArizona students, faculty, and staff learned about many initiatives both on and off campus to help individuals and groups establish simple, common sense practices to help sustain and protect our planet.

It's been a busy Spring! Along with a full schedule of field trips, we also continue to provide professional development for current and prospective educators, with workshops that focus on instructional practice and a variety of topics related to the wonders of the natural world.

The Cooper Center has grown again! We're proud to be able to add two new positions to the Camp Cooper team. As the Cooper Center continues to expand on the programs and resources we can offer, it was crucial to fill these roles with passionate, knowledgeable people who bring their love of the Sonoran Desert and the environment and ecosystem with them in their work.

Cooper Center's educators were part of this year's Family SciFest at the Children's Museum Tucson. We brought hands-on learning activities to the almost 1,300 attendees. The weather was beautiful, too! Thank you to everyone we met!