The Outdoor Leader program at the Urban Ecology Center allows youth to get outside, learn about green careers, make friends, and get paid! It is our goal to provide high school students the resources and guidance to make connections within themselves, their communities, and nature. Outdoor Leaders are a part of our Green Career Pathway program, which engages people of all ages, backgrounds, and interests in studies of ecology, volunteerism, environmental justice, and much more.

Skipping school, dodging the Riverside Park branch manager and free snacks leads to a home away from home…the perfect recipe for an “Impossible made Possible” at the Urban Ecology Center!

Jordan first came to the Urban Ecology Center in middle school on a Neighborhood Environmental Education Project fieldtrip. He remembers Mr. Flower coming and picking up his class in the busses and how cool it seemed to hang out in the woods. When he became a 9^th grader at Riverside University High School, he realized that the Center’s Riverside Park branch was right across the field from his new school. He could come and visit afterschool!

It seems like a simple task: start a fire, and boil a cup of water. Turns out it’s not so easy when all you have is a paper cup and three matches. During last year’s Teen Survival Challenge, I watched twenty different teams accomplish this task twenty different ways, and each of those ways gave me unique insight into the different ways teams work together and think through problems.