Every year, SCA provides training, tools and projects that place motivated teens and young adults in the field to effect changes great and small. How do we measure the effects? Sometimes its through decreased CO2 levels or by the tons of trash collected or in the number of trees planted. Our success is also measured by the lessons learned, the perspective gained and the lives we transform—today and into the future. Often when the SCA project is over, the success story is just beginning. Take a look at some of our most recent accomplishments.
Girl Scounts USA and SCA recently announced a two-year effort to expose more girls to the benefits of spending time in nature. As a first step, SCA led an all-Girl Scouts volunteer trail crew at Shenandoah National Park and among the ten-girl team was Rosie Lu.
There are a few things...
Katmai National Park’s famous Bear Cams let you watch live as wild bears feed on migrating salmon on Alaska’s Brooks River.
At birth, a brown bear cub is incredibly small, weighing just one pound and measuring about 9 inches long. That same bear may multiply its weight well over 1,000 times from newborn to adult. Humans would weigh over 6,000 pounds if we shared the same weight increase.
By Kiki Serantes (above L), SCA Cultural Resources Intern at Zion National Park
If a national park or wilderness is gradually degrading and no one notices it, is it still degrading? Even if we are told that our wilderness areas are being destroyed—indirectly through our own actions—does it matter if it’s...
As a SCA Museum Intern at Yosemite National Park, Dana Foster (Left) is sharpening her Cultural Resource Management skills and making it easier for people to connect with the historical and cultural resources that illuminate the connections between cultural identities and the land.
This June, Kate Hagner, Ann Pedtke, and Roland Richardson traveled to Detroit to represent SCA at the annual Points of Light Conference on Volunteering & Service — the largest service-related convening of nonprofit, government, business, and civic leaders in the world, welcoming more than 3,500 participants.
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Author: Samantha MacDonald Solberg, Web and Social Media Specialist at Search Institute
When Search Institute senior research scientist Dr. Amy Syvertsen asked staff members at the Student Conservation Association (SCA) if they think of themselves as a youth development organization, she received a resounding “no.” In fact, “they laughed...
As we left the oven-like truck to trek toward one of Zion’s many ancient rock art panels, I wondered how much graffiti we’d have to clean up this time. Would there be more pecked smiley faces or barely legible initials sprawled across the centuries-old indigenous patterns? Would it be too...
As a Cultural Resources Intern at Zion National Park, Kiara “Kiki” Serantes is gaining the experience she’ll need to translate her writing and political skills into a career spent keeping the world’s wilderness safe from environmental negligence for at least the Next 100 years.
Liz started SCA to help protect America’s national parks, but some of her first wilderness experiences occurred in the Canadian North Woods.
Beginning at age 11, Liz would join her family on summer trips to a cabin on Lac a Moise in Quebec, a journey that included long train rides from New York followed by several days of paddling and portaging with the aid of Indian guides.
Today at Allegheny Commons park in the North Side of Pittsburgh, SCA joined community conservation leaders, City Rangers, YMCA staff and campers, Mayor Peduto, and David Jayo to kick off the Let’s Move! Outside Pittsburgh initiative. SCA alumni council member, Jay Carter, gave a speech to kick-off the inititative,...
“We believe in the old adage ‘service is the rent you pay for living.’”
On June 11th, SCA teamed up with national supporter Domtar to refurbish a community boardwalk along the Roanoke River in Plymouth, North Carolina — helping to revitalize the waterfront and bring new visitors to this historic small town.
