• About UANews
• Sign up for News
• Resources for Media
• Calendar
• Contact Us

The grant will help the Cooper Center educate more than two-thirds of all students in the Tucson area on environmental issues.

By Rebecca Ruiz-McGill, University Communications
October 8, 2008

The University of Arizona has received a $30,000 grant from The Qwest Foundation to help fund the Cooper Center, a new partnership between the UA College of Education and Tucson Unified School District (TUSD).

The Qwest grant will help the Cooper Center educate approximately two-thirds of all students in the Tucson area about environmental issues. TUSD is the second largest school district in Arizona, serving more than 60,000 students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade.  Existing partnerships between the UA College of Education, the TUSD Science Center and the Flowing Wells and Sunnyside school districts made the partnership possible.

"We truly appreciate Qwest's contribution to the Cooper Center for Environmental Learning. This program exists in large part due to Qwest's generous support," said Ron Marx, dean of the UA College of Education. "The work that the Cooper Center does, using the natural environment as a catalyst for engaging students in out-of-school education experiences, is vital to understanding science in the real world."

The university has hired the center's new director, Mike Meyer, a veteran environmental teacher. TUSD will continue to pay the salary of Colin Waite, a longtime educator at the camp. The UA eventually will fund both positions.

The grant was officially awarded at the Cooper Center during an Oct. 8 event to thank Qwest Communications for providing grant funding for educational programming, solar energy programs and a new rainwater collection system.

"Qwest is proud to support The University of Arizona College of Education Cooper Center as it serves more than 60,000 students in the Tucson Unified School District," said Jim Campbell, Qwest Arizona president. "The connection that the Cooper Center creates between fundamental educational subjects and the real world is crucial to a student's long-term success."

The Qwest Foundation awards grants to community-based programs that generate high-impact and measurable results, focusing on pre-K through grade 12 education.

The event will also honor past directors of the Cooper Center. Formerly called Camp Cooper, the newly named Cooper Center for Environmental Learning has a long history with TUSD.

In the 1960s, TUSD bought several acres for a new school on the slopes of the Tucson Mountains, adjacent to Tucson Mountain Park. No school was ever built, but the district held onto the land and a prescient teacher began taking his students there to learn about the desert. Those initial lessons were eventually formalized as an environmental program; cabins were built to house students overnight, and an environmental staff of two taught lessons about owl pellets and animal tracks to generations of students.

Tight finances last year forced the district to solicit a partner, and the UA College of Education's proposal fit the bill. Under a three-year agreement, TUSD retains ownership, but the UA took over the operation on July 1, said Bruce Johnson, head of the UA department of teaching and teacher education. "They could have sold it for quite a bit of money, but they didn't want to do that."

The Cooper Center will use an innovative approach combining fundamental science concepts with real-world emphasis to provide students with the proper context surrounding the importance of science.

"The funds will be used for a new program for middle school students, Sunship III," Johnson said. "Seventh graders will spend three days at Cooper learning about how energy and materials are used in ecosystems and in our society. They will also see sustainable systems at Cooper, such as solar electricity generation and rainwater harvesting, and learn how to gather data about the energy and materials they use and produce."

Back at school, students will continue to gather data from the camp via the Internet. The goal is that by next year, as eighth graders, they'll evaluate energy systems at their own schools. 

Teachers will work with the UA College of Education faculty to develop the connections between school learning and out-of-school experiences in science, social studies, reading and writing. In addition, the Cooper Center will provide UA College of Education students with opportunities to teach prekindergarten through 12^th grade students develop and implement innovative curriculum and conduct important research.

Local schoolchildren - and adults - will have the chance to wander among the saguaros and prickly pears in the pristine tract in the city's western foothills. And while they're drinking in the beauty, they'll be learning practical lessons about how to harness solar energy and capture rainwater.

"Our goal is to help people from the Tucson community understand the Sonoran Desert and how to live appropriately in it," added Johnson.