Program Coordinator - Connecting Youth with the Outdoors
“No Child Left Inside”--Connecting Youth with the Outdoors
Program Coordinator
Background And Need
There is an urgent need to re-connect young people with the great outdoors and with the immediate environment. As several writers have warned, today’s young people are increasing becoming separated from the natural world which surrounds them. As a nation, if we hope to conserve our natural resources for future generations, we must re-connect young people to their environment. As Richard Louv so eloquently stated: we must “save our children from nature-deficit disorder.”
Arizona 4-H, in cooperation with National 4-H Headquarters, is leading an effort to fast-track a 4-H response to this urgent national issue. 4-H has a strong tradition of environmental education— resident and day camps, wildlife education, water conservation, outdoor adventure, forestry, fishing, ATV safety, shooting sports, and many other projects that teach young people about our natural world. At a retreat at Biosphere2 in January 2009, a national panel of experts identified some new initiatives that 4-H should pursue related to connecting children with the outdoors. Arizona 4-H is seeking to hire a person to provide leadership on two of these initiatives—family camps and neighborhood nature clubs.
Responsibilities—
The Program Coordinator will provide overall leadership and direction for bringing to reality two initiatives identified by a national group of experts—family camps and neighborhood nature clubs.
- In collaboration with the American Camp Association, 4-H will use its resources to convene a group of camp professionals in both organizations to develop a Family Camp manual that will serve as a guide for 4-H and other youth development professionals for planning, designing, implementing and evaluating family camp programs at the local level. Resources will be used to support the work of this volunteer design team and subsequent training and implementation.
- Utilizing the Children & Nature Network’s new publication on Nature Clubs for Families, a new curriculum will be designed to provide implementation tools and a training protocol for bringing this idea to fruition in the 4-H system. Capitalizing on the existing handbook, this program coordinator will develop the tools for starting grassroots, locally-based neighborhood nature clubs—a curriculum which will include materials such as flyers, newspaper ads, meeting agendas, templates for signage, suggestions for ways to take back and explore natural areas in local neighborhoods, and ideas for participating in the National Phenology Network data collection system. Evaluation tools will also be developed to assess the success of this method for connecting youth and families with nature. The goal is to build a network of citizen scientists in neighborhoods to get outdoors, reconnect with the nature world right outside their doors, and help track the effects of climate on seasonal changes in plant and animal behavior.
TimeLine: These two ideas need to be fully developed and implemented in the next year with the end date of October 1, 2010. Application period closes October 9th, 2009.
Specific Tasks--
- Review notes and decisions from the January 2009 Biosphere2 retreat.
- Consult with experts as needed and collect background information on the two initiatives.
- Develop a plan of action.
- Convene task groups and create new collaborations in order to bring both initiatives to life.
- Develop drafts of the materials.
- Pilot-test, evaluate and revise the curriculum materials.
- Refine materials.
- Final production and dissemination.
Supports:
American Camp Association
National Phenology Network (www.usanpn.org)
Arizona 4-H
For More Information, contact:
Dr. Kirk A. Astroth, Director
Arizona 4-H Youth Development
The University of Arizona
301 Forbes Building
1140 E. South Campus Drive
Tucson, Arizona 85721-0036
520-621-3390 (phone)
520-343-5855 (cell)
