Throughout the 2022 school year, we had 6 River Ranger interns from Kipp Denver Collegiate High School. This is the first time our River Rangers have been able to teach at our in-person field trips since the pandemic started! They taught our SPREE Animal Adventure Excursions (kinder & 1st grade) at various schools in the Denver area, one of which was their own middle school- Castro Elementary!
Since our interns were off to college during the summer, we hired 4 new & returning summer River Rangers to teach full time at our summer camp! Our Summer Rangers worked on their professional portfolios, and became certified Apprentice Environmental Educators through The Colorado Alliance of Environmental Education (CAEE). Despite starting off a tad shy, they came out of their shell and showed how great they were at teaching and leading! Not only were they rockstar teachers, but were some of the best teammates & hardest workers we’ve seen!
The Summer River Ranger team joined Wildland Restoration Volunteers (WRV) and The Nature Conservancy in July to rebuild trails at Phantom Canyon Preserve (picture to the right). They were able to build and restore more than 8 steps and trails in just one day, and enjoy a beautiful rainbow that evening! To end the summer on a great note TGF gave four $1,000 Joe Shoemaker Memorial scholarships to current and past Summer River Rangers to help with college tuition!
