.png)
EDUCATION
Education
Program
BRN’s Education Program comprises place-based educational programs built around a common curriculum covering the restoration of watersheds, ecosystems, and communities, providing a bioculturally relevant context.
​
Our programs have taught more than 2,000 participants through hands-on learning, workshops, internships, programs, and outreach for youth through adults.
These opportunities help shape participants’ views of the environment they live in and the role they each play as stewards in their communities. By providing technical skills and training and connecting our participants to professional and informal community networks, they are more prepared and energized to actively engage in the betterment of their communities and ecosystems. Our current programming is divided into four ongoing interdependent initiatives.
​​
Borderlands Earth Care Youth (BECY) inspires and trains the next generation of land stewards by hiring youth living on the US/Mexico borderlands to restore the binational watersheds they call home. Youth work with rock, wood, seeds, hands, and hearts to return flowing waters and riparian ecosystems to the arid borderlands.
​
Interns work alongside conservation professionals to improve their home communities. Simultaneously, they learn skills to develop leadership roles with increased responsibility, accountability, and empathy. Since beginning in 2012, almost over 200 youth have graduated from BECY.​​​
The Borderlands Field Course is a multidisciplinary training designed to empower for the next generation of environmental leaders. Guided by expert facilitators and presenters, it holistically addresses the biocultural challenges facing the border region and the Sky Islands.
​
The program consists of a tour of different landscapes in Sonora, Mexico, from the capital to the area closest to the US border.
​
The course includes lectures, workshops, and practical and theoretical activities covering topics such as a sense of place and community development, as well as technical skills in soil restoration, native plant propagation, and biological corridors. The course is offered at no cost and is taught entirely in Spanish.
Borderlands Restoration Network is working on expanding programming opportunities at the Borderlands Earth Care Center (BECC). As we grow the capacity of the education program, the budding We Grow Food program will allow more community members to participate in gardening, composting, seed and food harvesting, planting, shared learning, skills training, and relationship-building through projects and workshops on-site.
INTERNSHIPS
Learn new skills and gain valuable experience by working with our staff through internship opportunities. Available internships will be posted on our website job opportunities page as they become available or contact info@borderlandsrestoration.org to inquire about your specific internship needs.
SALUD COMCAAC
The Salud Comcaac program, a project initiated in 2020 by Senior Fellow Dr. Laura Monti, a long-time friend of the Comcaac, fosters community and ecological health in partnership with the Comcaac Nation of Sonora, Mexico.
Our partnership with the Comcaac community is rooted in the understanding that the desert and sea environment and the native population that dwell within them are interdependent.
