Trail guide volunteers are essential to the educational programming at Audubon Community Nature Center. You can experience the rewards of sharing nature with children by leading Discovery Walks at Audubon this spring. Like the volunteers pictured, on four Friday mornings in April the education staff will teach you all you need to know for this important work.

After a pandemic-related hiatus, the Audubon Community Nature Center is welcoming back trail guide volunteers.

Essential to Audubon’s educational programming, trail guides lead 90-minute Discovery Walks with preschool through fourth grade students visiting on field trips. Serving as an Audubon Trail Guide is a rewarding opportunity.

At training sessions from 9 a.m. to noon on Fridays, April 8, 15, 22, and 29, Audubon education staff will teach volunteers how to inspire curiosity about the natural world through age-appropriate activities outdoors. These four sessions will also cover how to work with different ages of children, tips and tricks to keep them on task, fun things to do outside, rainy day plans, and local natural history.

This multi-day training provides new and returning trail guides with the skills to lead small groups of elementary students on Audubon’s trails to achieve the mission of a Discovery Walk: to inspire and nurture curiosity about the natural world.

Information and skills learned are useful in other volunteer positions at Audubon as well.

The training sessions take place both indoors and out, so plan to come dressed for the weather.

Reservations for the training are required by Wednesday, April 6, and can be made by calling 716-569-2345 during business hours or clicking through “Upcoming Programs” at AudubonCNC.org.

Experience with children is helpful, but natural history knowledge is not necessary. Those interested in becoming a trail guide and want to find out what it is all about before registering, call Sarah Hatfield, Audubon education coordinator, at 716-569-2345 or email her at SHatfield@AudubonCNC.org.

The Audubon Community Nature Center is located at 1600 Riverside Road, one-quarter mile east of Route 62 between Jamestown and Warren. From dawn to dusk daily area residents can use the six miles of trails and outdoor Nature Play Area and view Liberty, Audubon’s non-releasable Bald Eagle, all for free.

The three-story Nature Center building houses interactive displays, a collection of live animals including the Hellbender exhibit, the 2021 Nature Photography Contest winners, and the Blue Heron Gift Shop. Visitors are welcome Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m. Nature Center members and SNAP/EBT cardholders have free building admission daily. Building admission is also free every Sunday for non-Nature Center members.