Youth leaders shine
taking action for trees

Growing Teen Urban Forester cohort in numbers and diversity

Since 2006, Canopy's Teen Urban Forester (TUF) program has offered paid urban forest internships to East Palo Alto high school students. In recent years, the number of students applying has far exceeded the available positions.

To include more students and support growing tree programs, Canopy expanded the TUF cohort size from 8 students to 16 students in 2021. Juanita Ibarra, Canopy's Youth Program Coordinator since 2020, says she focused on growing the TUF program in ways that expanded diversity among each cohort. The program now includes students from every East Palo Alto high school and is racially diverse in a way that Juanita says reflects the East Palo Alto community.

The team has also formalized the program's focus on youth of color. "The Teen Urban Forester program has always engaged BIPOC [black, indigenous, and people of color] students," Juanita says, "but we've made it a more explicit goal, especially to address the fact that people of color are underrepresented in environmental fields."

Holistic approach fosters belonging along with key skills

Training and enrichment have always been an important part of the Teen Urban Forester curriculum, but the pandemic years highlighted a need and opportunity to support teens in more holistic ways. "The pandemic was really stressful for high school students," emphasizes Juanita. "Once we were able to resume outdoor work days, some TUFs shared that Canopy sessions were their only opportunity to be outside and spend time with their peers."

To support the teens through challenging times, Juanita introduced wellness workshops that focus on teens’ mental health and provide a creative outlet, often including a guest artist from the EPA community.

Over the last two years, Juanita has also shifted project-based work to be even more student-directed, and incorporated more themes of environmental justice and identity. In addition to building leadership and workplace skills, Juanita wants to give TUFs opportunities for deeper discussions, a chance to reflect on their own experience and identity, and to connect with their peers in ways that foster inclusion and belonging.

Juanita says this intentionality has made a noticeable difference in the TUFs engagement. At the end of each session, Juanita shares, “reading their evaluations and seeing how energetic they are to return, seeing growth in them—it’s a proud moment.”

The TUFs themselves also express appreciation for the culture of belonging that’s fostered by their work together. "The team of TUFs are like a second family to me; I feel like they’re like brothers and sisters," shares Adrian Maciel, a senior at Oxford Day Academy who has been a Canopy TUF since he was a freshman. "They’re just great people to be around and work with."