Rouge Park Mountain Bike Trail, Detroit, MISunday, October 3, 10am-2pmEVENT RECAP: Event was a huge success with approximately 30 participants from SCA, the Michigan Mountain Bike Association and the Hub (a local community bike shop in Detroit)! The location was at Rouge Park’s Mountain Bike trail, a two-mile loop along the Rouge River in Northwest Detroit.
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.
Posted by Staff |
Have you ever pulled weeds in a flower or vegetable garden? If so, I’m sure you’re familiar with the aching feeling that develops in the small of your back and hands after a few hours labor. Now, picture a garden two miles square with weeds as big as a St. Bernard. Just such a land lies on Joshua Tree National Park’s eastern border.
Posted by Staff |
Next to one of the refuge visitor’s centers, of which there are two, were many patches of crown vetch and leafy spurge. Both of these are invasive species the refuge is trying to eradicate.
Posted by Carolyn Lucey |
I can’t believe the AEO Sandy Recovery Crew has already finished our week of conservation work at Floyd Bennet Field in Gateway National Recreation Area.
Posted by Staff |
This morning representatives from the Walmart Foundation, and the Student Conservation Association (SCA), together with the Friends of the Forest Preserves celebrated the launch of SCA’s Conservation Leadership Corps in Chicago. The CLC willl engage 60 local high school students in conservation service, environmental education, and green jobs training.
Posted by Staff |
I would like to begin this post with a polite rescinding of all of the nice things I have ever said about greenbrier. Blackberries will always be a sworn enemy, but after this afternoon, the greenbrier has fallen out of my favor as well.
We got a slow start to the day, a bunch of refuge business fell out of the sky all at once.
Posted by Staff |
Andon Zebal (SCA ‘08) recently sent me this blog entry recounting his SCA experience. Andon grew up in Mexico and hopes to return there to work on sustainable forestry and reforestation. This summer, he will embark on a “Reforestation Backpacking Trip,” attempting to see as many projects as possible as he travels through Mexico and Central America. You can follow his adventures (including his SCA experience last summer) at his blog, Restoring the Americas.Justin, John and I visited the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northern Oklahoma. The preserve is the largest protected prairie remnant in the world. I assumed it was a national or at least a state park, but it turns out the whole thing is run by the Nature Conservancy! We met with Bob Hamilton (in between Justin and me in the picture below), basically the ecosystem manager of the preserve. He has been working with the preserve since before it started in 1989, so the Prairie is basically his baby.
Posted by Staff |
by Jillian Begin, SCA Crew Member, Borderland State Park, MassachusettsTrail work hurts. Between the sore muscles, bruises and scrapes, there’s no getting around the fact that this is physical labor. We live in a world of risks: tick bites, poison ivy, chainsaws, and boulders. Working ten days in a row can weather an individual.
Posted by Staff |
For all my talking about Joshua Tree National Park, I never mentioned what a Joshua tree was or even looked like.
Above is a Joshua tree. There you go! There are also many farther away in the picture. Now moving on…
Working with a group of people in the desert is an experience hard to ever accurately illustrate in words.
Posted by Staff |
This post is written by SCA Conservation Corps members of the Veterans Fire Corps in ArizonaWhat follows is the tale of six inspiring individuals, dedicated to a life of service, who share a connection to the land and have made a commitment to the people who live there.
Posted by Staff |
The Houston crew started off first thing Monday morning with orientation at the office. Everyone was able to meet for the first time, learn the names of tools they’d be using and learn what projects they will be doing in the next six weeks. Orientation also gave students a chance to get a feel for what they would be doing out in the field.
Posted by Staff |
A lot has happened in the past 2 weeks. The Piping Plover chick watches ended July 11th so now we just do routine checks on them every day. They seem to have done well this year with around 25 chicks on our three beaches. They are still as cute as ever but are getting to be pretty big. Seven on Crescent Beach have already fledged.
Posted by Greg Kinman |
Here is our boat, tied up at the launch at Eagle. The bluff towers over the tiny village.
On my second patrol, June 18th-26th, my supervisor, Josh, and I embarked on a motorboat trip up and down the section of the Yukon River that lies within Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.
Posted by Staff |
Ben Goldfarb recently completed a hitch as an SCA Fisheries intern at Yellowstone, charged with helping restore the native cutthroat trout, a food source for grizzlies and otters among others. You can learn more about these photos and Ben’s assignment by visiting his blog, wastivore.blogspot.
by Andrea Willingham
Posted by Andrea Willingham |
Andrea’s been in Nome, Alaska since this summer, serving as the SCA Multimedia and Graphic Design Intern for Bering Land Bridge National Preserve.
Posted by Staff |
Trail Crew on Mount Rogers in 1993. Found via the SCA Facebook Group.This is the twentieth entry in our ongoing series, Photograph Fantastique, in which we count down 50 days until the Unofficial Official Start of High Season for conservation programs.
Posted by Joseph Thurston |
Winter is on and so is Round 4 of the Conservation Caption Competition. Who’s going to win a prize pack of choice SCA goods? Whoever comments with the cleverest caption (as judged by caption quality evaluator, and Follow Me blogger, Danielle Thompson).Entries are due, either here or on Facebook, by Thursday at 5 PM EST.Special thanks to SCA national partner Dr.
Posted by Staff |
If you are an undergraduate or graduate student of color and you’re looking for an exciting career opportunity, then look no further than the National Park Service Academy. The Academy is a joint program between SCA and the National Park Service designed to introduce diverse students from across the country to career opportunities with the National Parks.
Posted by Staff |
(above) This picture taken after dominating the last bit of trail and hiking out laden with tools.