The Leader Team Program is a new SCA program model that is primarily focused on fulfilling SCA’s mission to create the next generation of conservation leaders. Successful completion of this program qualifies a member to serve as an SCA leader themselves, ideally immediately following the Leader Team Program.
Leader Team Members will first work as part of the leader team for three months in the spring in one location, then (if they graduate) either: take on the Project Leader position for a larger, “standard” team of Corps members for the three-month summer team in that location, or take on a leader position for another SCA program.
The project for this leader team is the Army Corps of Engineers Visitor Use Survey Program (ACE VUS). This is a two-year-old SCA partnership that provides members a valuable opportunity to help the Army Corps of Engineers monitor the use of its beautiful recreational sites across the country. Teams will: collect, organize and download interview data; use a schedule of randomly selected sample sites for specific dates; collaborate with SCA leader and ACE staff; maintain proper care of supplies and equipment; and much more. The team will also design and carry numerous conservation projects and community service projects, both at the sites they are monitoring and elsewhere in the local community. This gives the members an opportunity to interact with project staff, develop their leadership skills, and leave a lasting impact in their community.
Nashville is so chill [1]
After seeing off our friends heading to Cumming, GA and Waco, TX for the spring season, we (the Nashville crew) took a day to get our minds clear and our house organized. Although we loved being host to our amazing friends from the Georgia and Texas crews and we were sad to see them go, it was time prepare for the busy work week looming ahead. We spent our first day organizing ourselves in our East Nashville home, making sure that our minds were clear and we were ready to hit the ground running. The next day, with the coffee pot a-bubblin’ and our game faces on, we started researching and planning out our service projects that we had brainstormed to complete or spring work plan. Much of the day we spent making contacts with local organizations and gathering information to mold our ideas into something more concrete. It also gave us time to laugh and get to know each other a lot more. It didn’t take long for any of us to feel like we were all at home. Toward the end of the day we were able to pick up our long awaited rental cars that we would be driving for the spring season. Oh was it great to be driving those back to our cozy home. After a fun filled day of planning, we took the next day to drive to all of our Visitor Use locations. It was a great day and great weather to explore the beautiful lakes and woodlands that creep in and around the Nashville area. Though spring hadn’t officially taken hold, we saw many birds out on the reservoirs and marshy areas, and some wildlife on the roads. All of us were excited to get out in the field and start working.
After a few days of good work we took the weekend to enjoy ourselves, visiting our friends from the Georgia crew, and spending a little time in Tennessee. We regrouped on Sunday and did some final prep and checking for our first day of surveying on Monday. We made sure that we had all the directions to make it to our survey sites, fueled the vehicles up, and checked to make sure that all of our survey equipment and gear were ready to go for the survey season! Soon enough Monday morning rolled through and Sophie and Mike were off on their first day of Visitor Use Surveys for the season, and Eva was ready for her first on Wednesday. After enjoying some beautiful 70 degree weather during training a week earlier, a cold front moved in and brought a few days of snow flurries and a 30-40 degree chill! What a change it was, but Sophie, Eva and Mike were all up for the challenge. We all got to interact with all sorts of interesting folk, from overzealous environmentalists to long-time locals, and crazed fisherman to ACE rangers. We all learned a lot about the local culture this week. Even though we worked our tails off this week, we still found some time to enjoy ourselves. Sophie and Mike had another southern experience going to a show at the Grand Ole Opry. There we saw performances by legends Ricky Skaggs, Bill Anderson and Jean Shepard, lady’s man Craig Morgan, and two great younger bands Old Crow Medicine Show and the Black Lillies. We closed out our week with some busy survey days on the weekend and are looking to continue the momentum through the spring season! Happy Easter everyone!
Written by Mike
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Hello! [8]
Hitch 1
Nine strangers. One house. Many water bottles. And so many hugs. It could easily be summarized as this for our first week of training in Nashville, TN for SCA’s Army Corps of Engineer’s Visitor Use Survey Program. We started off with a bang, hosting the three teams (Nashville, TN, Cumming, GA and Waco, TX) in a modest little home tucked in the funky neighborhood in East Nashville. Although the house was synonymous to Home Alone’s opening scene of Christmas Day scramble, we had a method to our madness and everyone was just happy to be there, getting to know our fellow SCAers in close quarters, playing board games with furious passion, and talking late into the night about our previous experiences in conservation.
The first week of orientation was held at James Percy Priest Visitor’s Center, where Alex, Josiah and Liz taught us the ins and outs of SCA. It was an incredibly informative week, where we did everything from re-thinking our conservation ethics, to role-playing conflict resolution scenarios, to embracing diversity and mastering the ultimate feeling of confusion when it comes to paylocity. For me personally, having no prior experience with SCA, I felt incredibly welcomed and reassured that I would get everything with time. Everyone was incredibly supportive and would lend a helping hand. The group seemed to really bond during this week of orientation, our fearless Project Leaders Sophie (Nashville), Leah (Cumming), and Josh (Waco), all mentoring the members with their invaluable leadership experiences, which came in handy once Friday rolled around; the house transforming into a haven for us as we put our heads down and completed our Work Portfolios for the Spring.
The Work Portfolios are conservation projects that each member of each team designs to fulfill the “core competencies.” The “core competencies” that we are focusing on fall under the four pillars of SCA’s mission statement: Conservation (ecological literacy, conservation history, conservation ethic), Leadership (risk management, leadership development, work readiness), Service (technical skills, project management, reflection), and Stewardship (diversity and inclusion, civic engagement, ecosystem engagement). Using these pillars as guidance to give our ideas direction, we completed at least four project proposals each to work on for the duration of the spring program. As the survey periods will be conducted during the week, we are given one day a week to work on our projects and to fulfill SCA’s mission “to build the next generation of conservation leaders and inspire lifelong stewardship of our environment and communities by engaging young people in hands-on service to the land.”
The week finished with a day off on Saturday, where the 9 strangers had by then become friends, and everyone took the opportunity to soak in the sights of Music City. Some of us went on bike rides while others checked out the downtown area. Fun was had all around, and it was great to relax and enjoy our time together before everyone had to leave for their respective SCA homes in a couple of days.
Sunday and Monday were the days when the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) came into the picture. We started the day meeting Meredith, Dina and Matt, whom we (the Nashville Team) will be working with during the Visitor Use Survey Program. We went over the surveys, familiarizing ourselves with the questions and getting comfortable with different scenarios. Some of the rangers that sat in on the meetings even role-played for us, acting our different characters that we might run across at our different sites- that was one of the most entertaining parts of the day. We also had a chance to travel to two of the sites, setting up the cones and signs so we would know how to do it when Day 1 officially rolled around. We ended that day with a furious relay on the playground, where we got to run around a bit after a productive day in the field.
That night we had our farewell dinner, Sophie finishing off her marathon-week of cooking us all dinner with her Guatemalan breakfast- if you haven’t had this it is amazing, and we were all unbuttoning our pants by the end of the meal. Tuesday morning came too soon, and each team bid us farewell in their own ways: Waco piling into their car with relaxed waves of goodbye, Cumming rambunctiously picking people up in the air. Sophie, Mike and I stood for second, contemplating the emptiness of the house, what we would do with all that empty space. Although we were sad to see our short-lived family go, there was a feeling of excitement in the air: we would soon be starting surveys and our conservation projects, and not a moment was to be wasted. Hello Nashville, here we come!
Written by Eva
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Hello Sophie [26]
California native, currently adopted by the South.
I began volunteering at a backpacking camp in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains at 16. The Carson-Iceberg Wilderness and Camp Jack Hazard became my home and every summer I found respite from scorching California central valley temperatures. The wilderness smoothed over my cracks and rough edges and the stars sang me to sleep every night. I watched campers grow to love the back country, returning year after year, growing wiser and more aware of their own environmental responsibility.
College school years were spent studying at Modesto Junior College and Humboldt State University. Cultural Anthropology, I specialized in ancient cultures of Central America. Summer 2008, I attended the Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca in central southern Mexico as an exchange student. In 2009, I graduated from Humboldt State University with a BA in Cultural Anthropology, minor in Spanish.
In 2010, I moved to San Jose, California to join AmeriCorps and work for a non-profit called Our City Forest where I worked on a team that focused on managing and enhancing the health of the urban forest.
Early 2012, I began researching opportunities to get my hands dirty with the Student Conservation Association and found myself working in beautiful northern Georgia on lakeshores leading a team conducting visitor use surveys. This year, I have returned to lead the leader crew in Tennessee and am excited about the opportunity to support the development of future SCA leaders.
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I am Eva [30]
Eva originally grew up and is from a small town nestled in the Upper Valley of Vermont. When she's not outside looking up at the sky or getting her hands dirty, she's inside... preferably listening to some jazzy new tunes and sharing them on www.ruckusrhythms.com [31], a pretty funky music blog y'all should check out. Graduating from UVM, Eva skipped around a bit and lived in India for 5 months working for an organization called Shikshantar, where they focused on upcycling, conservation, and opening up alternate avenues of education and learning. After returning to the States, Eva decided to hike the Appalachian Trail, taking 5 1/2 months for her journey. Completing the hike this past October, Eva jumped at the opportunity to serve for the SCA and to live in a new and totally different environment that is Nashville, TN. And so- here she is!
With extensive leadership experience and a furious hunger to learn from her peers, Eva will bring to the team a love for exploring the culture and music of Music City. With an artsy background and a love to experience the new, Eva hopes to add a splash of creativity and fun to the surveys and conversation projects that will be administered this Spring.
Eva is extremely excited to be a part of the SCA and living in the South. Having a furious love for boiled peanuts and music, it is a prime location to explore her passions. Eva is also super excited to experience the sweltering heat she keeps hearing about. She even got a little spray fan thing for those really swampy Tennessee days! What she is most excited about is integrating herself within the quaint and quirky community of East Nashville, getting to know her neighbors, and to learn more about her conservation ethics within and outside the SCA.
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I am Mike [34]
Growing up in the Green Mountain State, my early years were spent enjoying the fresh air and soft rolling hills of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom countryside. From an early age, being outside in the neighboring woodland was one of my favorite things to do. The rural countryside offered small, trickling creeks, beautiful mountains views, and a wide variety of wildlife. This was where my love for science took root. I spent many summers camping, hiking and fishing with friends. While in junior high and high school I volunteered at the Green Mountain Conservation Camp, where I helped 12-16 year old kids develop an appreciation for the outdoors through camping, canoeing, hiking, hunter firearm safety and various other outdoor activities. This was my favorite place to spend a few weeks of my summer vacation. Throughout high school I worked at a local nursery and began to learn about plants and to appreciate have to offer.
My continued interest in the biological sciences remained strong as I entered college. I pursued a degree in biology at the University of New Hampshire for a few years, concentrating in marine biology. I finished my Bachelor of Science in Integrated Biological Sciences at the University of Vermont, concentrating in ecology, wildlife biology and Spanish. I continued working at a nursery where my interest in plants developed further. It was at UVM that I discovered the career path I wanted to take. I am now working toward building my career as a wildlife biologist/ecologist.
My first SCA experience I was in June of 2012. I was offered a position as a team member of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Trails Inventory Program. This position was the most enjoyable job I’ve had to date. Taking inventory of trail features on hiking trails at National Wildlife Refuges all over the country was the best way I could have possibly explored this country. I traveled through states as far east as Tennessee and Alabama, all the way to the final frontier of Alaska. During this time I had so many experiences with great people in places I will remember forever. Because of this experience I decided to continue working with the SCA, this time to develop my leadership skills while working with the Army Corps of Engineers in Nashville, Tennessee for the 2013 season.
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