High School Earth Camp
(Entering grades 9-12)

High School Earth Camp will not be offered in the summer of 2014

Earth Camp opens eyes and minds to our unique, interdependent and awe-inspiring planet, drawing connections from our homes, to our region, to the globe, and to what we can learn about Earth from space.

Conceived to honor the legacy of Columbia space shuttle astronaut Laurel Clark, the goal of Earth Camp is to educate and inspire youth to build leadership skills through experiential learning and conceptual understanding of earth processes. Earth Camp seeks to expand youth awareness of the interdependency of all living things, create a sense of wonder related to the Sonoran Desert and ecosystems worldwide, as well as open their eyes to the "awe-inspiring" universal perspective. High School Earth Camp provides hands-on ecological research experience to help youth appreciate how science can be used to help people make better choices in a rapidly changing world.

High School Earth Camp will challenge youth entering grades 9-12 to explore global changes in climate, water and landscapes as well as how these changes impact sustainability issues. Students will work together in small-groups exploring ecology and water resources from southern Arizona to eastern Utah.

The bulk of our investigations will take place during a 5 day rafting trip down the Green River's Desolation Canyon in Central Utah. Desolation Canyon's 90 river miles offer the perfect venue to study the history of water resource policy, development of the West and its impacts on the flora, fauna and ecology of our region. We will gain an understanding that turning on any faucet in the West has wide ranging impacts that can be felt from the Sea of Cortez to the headwaters of the Green and Colorado Rivers in the Rocky Mountains. As we engage in our own exploration of the Desert Southwest we will gain insights into the work of early western explorers such as Major John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 charted the last unmapped portions of the west, including the Colorado River system and our destination, Desolation Canyon. We will compare and contrast the life and work of early explorers with that of modern day pioneers such as Laurel Clark, and see how even today, in an era of scientific enlightenment, there is ample territory for new exploration and discovery.

Students will be immersed in the ecology of the Sonoran Desert at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum where they will have the chance to interact with live animals and learn about the unique qualities of the Sonoran Desert. As we travel north from Tucson to Moab Utah, they will explore several distinct ecosystems as we travel up and out of the Basin and Range of the Sonoran Desert and arrive on the expansive Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin Desert. In our travels we will stop along the way to see sites of natural and cultural significance such as Canyon De Chelly National Mounument, Monument Valley, and the Glen Canyon Dam. Students will consider how past, current and future environmental change will affect them wherever they live and use satellite imagery to analyze the causes and impacts of change at different scales. Upon our return to Tucson, campers will have the opportunity to utilize the vast resources of the University of Arizona where they will assimilate their newly acquired knowledge and understanding of how people use, change and can protect the landscapes we have visited.

During the entire twelve days, campers will record their journey in photos, drawings, observations, data and personal reflections in field journals, which will then be transferred to individual web pages. Campers will compute and evaluate their personal and collective environmental impact and use this ecological footprint to inform future choices.

Please note: this is a field excursion and students will camp under the stars (or in tents) in the desert and on the river beaches each night. The river excursion portion of the trip is a genuine wilderness experience and campers will need to come prepared for the rigors of outdoor living and the joys and challenges that come with it.

A Learning Celebration at the end of the camp gives the students an opportunity to share their discoveries with each other and with their families.

Participants are selected by an application process.

View a sample of our day by day activities.

For more information call Amy Orchard at 520-883-3083.

The application deadline of March 15th 2014 has passed.