Photo credit: Karen Chu

For the first time in several years the Garden will be training a new group of docents to educate and share the beauty and importance of nature with K-12 students and the UCLA family of students, faculty, and staff, as well as other community groups of all ages.

Experience in botany is not required. Volunteers will receive basic botanical training by the Professor, Phil Rundel, the director of the Garden, during five weekly 1 ½ hour sessions. Concurrently senior docents will mentor trainees in the art of docenting.  Part of the mentoring process will include user-friendly introductions to the Garden by way of senior docent led sample tours. Early in the process, trainees will serve as assistants to senior docents on real tours so they might experience first hand how fun it is and how quickly the time goes by.

A great benefit to becoming a MEMBG docent is the on-going exposure to new botanical information and styles of docenting on field trips to other gardens and locations.
In addition, the MEMBG docents are enriched by the many presentations on campus from by faculty, graduate students and Garden staff.

For more information on the docent program and to enroll in the April training, call Carol Felixson at 310 206-3887 or email cfelixso@ucla.edu. To learn more about the Garden see http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/bg-home.htm

Published: Friday, March 01, 2013