2014-APDC Youth SWAT at Flying W Ranch

Start Date-End Date: 07/08/2014-07/08/2014 Land Manager Office: Flying W Ranch Land Manager Contact: Aaron Winter Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: 20 students and 3 staff from the Asian Pacific Development Center's Youth Leadership Academy will perform a half day of fire restoration at the Flying W Ranch. Description: Volunteers will install Log Erosion Barriers (LEBs) LEBs act to hold soil that would otherwise erode at a high rate, due to the lack of vegetation from the intensity of the Waldo Canyon Fire in 2012. These efforts will help Flying W in there ongoing restoration and watershed protection work. Latitude/Longitude: 38.916723, -104.883792 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Moderate High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 20 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 4 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 19 Total Volunteer Days: 23 Total Unique Volunteers: 23 Total Volunteer Hours: 138 Staff Hours: 21 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: Successes and Challenges: Lessons Learned: Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Students got a chance to learn about the Waldo Canyon Fire, and how the project they were working on would help restore the forest and protect downstream communities by mitigating severe erosion. Flying W Staff was great at patiently explaining how to install an erosion barrier (this was a long process) and teaching students the reason and importance for the work. Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: It was a slow start doing LEB demos with Flying W staff. However, after we broke into crews, the group really hit their stride in the latter half of the project, and ended being a good group to work with. They have expressed interest in doing more SWATs in the futre, so it may be good to vet the age group a little better in in future planning stages with APDC. Initially, this was supposed to be a 14-18 aged project, but one of the group leaders didn't catch this until the last minute, and had signed up 12 and 13 year olds. I told him we couldn't do 12 year olds, but we went ahead and accomodated 13 year olds. The work was a little too physical for some of the younger kids, and if we had known the true age range ahead of time, we could have set up another age appropriate project for the younger folks. However, there were 2 younger students who pretty much hated being there. They were unresponsive to staff direction and disinterested in the project. We had them work closely alongside their teacher to keep them as engaged as possible, and even he eventually dismissed them from the project, telling them to wait at the bottom of the hill until we were done. I doubt that even less physical work would have made them happy. APDC works with many new immigrants and refugees, so language was a barrier for some of the younger students who spoke poor english. VOC staff needs to take it upon themsleves to better prepare project partners for this in the future, as communication was difficult in a few instances. Overall though, this was a productive, engaged group that I think got a lot out of the project. I'd be glad to work with them in the future and can apply the lessons learned from this first go-around. Description of Accidents/Incidents: It was a cold and wet day. No major incidents occured as a result, though some kids handled this better than others. There were a few long faces all day. We put one girl on light duty due to an injured knee. One student felt nauseous at the end of the project, so we gave her a ride down to the parking lot, as opposed to having her hike out. Description of Work Completed: 4 adults and 19 students aged 13-18 from the Asian Pacific Development Center's Youth Leadership Academy volunteered at Flying W Ranch. Volunteers installed Log Erosion Barriers, which will help control post-fire erosion in the area, restore the forest, and protect downstream communities. Flying W Ranch staff also helped out with a post-project debrief, in which we got a lot of good feedback from the participants.