Home > Volunteer > Docent program

Volunteer Docent Naturalist Training Program

Discover the rewards of volunteering! Become an Adkins Arboretum volunteer docent.

Docent training session led by Nick Carter

Arboretum docents have many stories to tell—they learn to weave scientific facts about native plants into stories about plant neighborhoods, relationships between plants and animals, and who was here on the land before there was an Arboretum.

Docents make friends with a core number of native plants that live in each of our plant communities, meadows, transitional thickets, bottomlands, uplands, young forests, and wetlands. They become well versed in the history of the Arboretum, so as to better carry on their important role as Arboretum ambassadors and as translators of the Arboretum experience.

Train the Trainer - Volunteer Interpreter Program
April 10 and 17, 2008 - 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

“Train the Trainer”, a two-day interpreter training course, is a program that offers a hands-on approach to the development and implementation of an interpretive program with volunteers.  This training component targets volunteer coordinators and trainers, education and interpretation managers, key staff and volunteers interested in building an interpretive program at Chesapeake Gateways sites and at other local museums, cultural and historical sites.  
 
It provides a review of common interpretive language suitable for cultural, environmental or historical settings and a review of best management and evaluation practices for the establishment of a successful volunteer docent program.  It provides the necessary background for participants to plan interpretive programs, to recruit and train volunteers and to link their organization to the Chesapeake Bay.

To learn more, please download and read The Train the Trainer Workshop Description. (pdf)
To apply, please download, print and return The Train the Trainer Volunteer Application. (pdf)

Further information is available by contacting Erica Weick, Coordinator of Volunteer Programs, at 410-634-2847, extension 27 or