Outdoor Educators Needed at the Heart-J Center At Sylvan Dale Ranch -Apply Now!

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The Heart-J Center (HJC) at Sylvan Dale Ranch is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to providing experiential learning opportunities for people of all ages.

This spring, from April 15th to May 22nd, HJC will host hundreds of k-12 students from various northern Colorado schools for outdoor education field trips at our 3,000+ acre outdoor learning laboratory, Sylvan Dale Ranch. As a small non-profit we depend on volunteers for success and we are looking for volunteer outdoor education leaders to help run our spring programming. Read on for the specifics and apply to volunteer today!

Opportunity Specifics

Location: Heart-J Center for Experiential Learning at Sylvan Dale Ranch (Loveland, CO)

Volunteer application due date: Friday, April 5th

Volunteers should plan to commit to the following dates:

• Outdoor Ed Volunteer Orientation & BBQ: Saturday, April 13th, 1pm - 5pm

• Our Spring Outdoor Ed Season Runs from April 15th to May 22nd - volunteers should be able to commit to show up for at least one of the OE field trips on the schedule (details in application)

HJC Outdoor Ed Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0PS5WCfL_go

Opportunity Summary:

The Heart-J Center provides k-12 students the chance to get out of the classroom and immerse themselves in fun and challenging activities that embrace natural history, outdoor skills, art, leadership skills, team building and more. In general, the activities we offer for outdoor ed field trip are customized to meet the needs of each group, however, we’re looking to balance group needs with offering activities based on the interests and strengths of our volunteers. Therefore, if you have a particular area of interest that you don’t see listed in the application, let us know and we’ll see if it might be a good fit for some of our programming!

During our spring/fall outdoor ed seasons, we offer programs for groups up to 300 k-12 students (most are middle school and high school students). A more typical group size is 70-80 children, staying onsite for between 3-6 hours. For programming, we split the visiting students into smaller groups of 10-25 children, where the groups then rotate through activities led by our volunteer educators.

We usually offer between 4 - 6 activity themes for each outdoor ed day (i.e. hiking, wildlife talk, archery, eco-art, challenge course, river ecology, etc.). Depending on group size, activity sections can last anywhere from 25 to 55 minutes before the next group rotates in.

With the guidance of the HJC program manager, volunteers are responsible for designing and delivering their own programming. Volunteers must be self-directed, have strong organizational skills, and have the ability to execute a plan. With that said, the groups are fun, the stakes are pretty low and our outdoor ed programming offers the perfect setting to develop and hone your skills as a educator, facilitator, and leader!

Click the following link to apply: Complete the application form here
Application url: https://docs.google.com/ forms/d/e/ 1FAIpQLSfUOgGXBrJDVgodg_ bYmiU31ds6JaJbI_ kJzuMmsfTLOIFrYA/viewform