2018-YES Conference

Start Date-End Date: 10/13/2018-10/13/2018 Land Manager Office: Land Manager Contact: Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: Youth Exploring Stewardship Conference Description: Youth Exploring Stewardship Conference Latitude/Longitude: 40.145934, -105.391618 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 13 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 2 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 13 Total Volunteer Days: 15 Total Unique Volunteers: 15 Total Volunteer Hours: 165 Staff Hours: 12.5 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: 13 Cairn students attended the YES Conference up at Cal-Wood education center for their October event this year. There were 19 other youth representing 5 other organizations also present. The YES Conference was the first event put on by the Youth Exploring Stewardship Coalition.The event was originally scheduled to be an overnight, but due to a poor weather forecast for Sunday, the choice was made the Thursday prior to shorten the event to a one day. While this worked well, I know many of the participants were bummed that it was shortened as they were all really looking forward to the overnight portion. After a few ice breakers, the groups split into two to participate in their stewardship projects. Feedback indicated that the stewardship projects where the most rewarding part of the day. Following Lunch, participants rotated through "next steps" in stewardship rotations, largely focused on natural resource pathways once you are done with High School. The day was well organized and the participants all enjoyed themselves, but everyone indicated they wish they could have had more time together. 9-9:15 Youth arrive 9:155-10 Welcome/expectations/team building activity 10-12 Stewardship project Forestry Wildlife Management 12-1 Set-up, lunch, clean-up 1-3 Stewardship Pathways Rotations 1-1:50 Rotation 1: Option A: Youth Corps and AmeriCorps Option B: Natural Resources Careers Option C: Graduate Studies in Restoration Science 2:00-2:50 Rotation 2: Option A: Youth Corps and AmeriCorps Option B: Natural Resources Careers Option C: Natural Resources Careers--Environmental Ed ?3-3:45 Debrief activity and wrap-up 4pm Depart Successes and Challenges: Successes We received both positive verbal feedback as well as great feedback from the surveys that were given at the end of the day Saturday. With 100% of the attendee's indicating that they would attend this event again. Allowing youth to choose their events was great, and the fact that they choose which sessions they wanted to go to in their applications allowed for use to be well organized and know how many students would be in each activity. We used stickers on their name-tags to indicate which session they would be a part of. The youth really enjoyed meeting and working with students from other like-minded organizations. Location was great- provided plenty of indoor and outdoor space as well as a great lunch Challenges Figuring out rides ahead of time was a little challenging for just one person Our biggest challenge was obviously the weather, because it truly prevented us from offering the experience we had been planning since March. Lessons Learned: Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: