Volunteer educator's needed for the underserved at Govt. Canyon SNA

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Do you have a passion for the outdoors and for our natural resources? Have you spent time learning about local cultural history or geology? Would you like to make a lasting impact and difference in a young person's life that they will remember forever?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you may be perfect for the Trails to Tomorrow AmeriCorps VISTA project we are hosting at Government Canyon SNA. The project is going to bring youth from economically distressed and underserved areas in Bexar County to Govt. Canyon for a basic hike, and learning experiences.

We are currently looking for volunteers to help with the events which would be roughly a half day in length and for people with all kinds of experience in the Natural Resources, Wildlife Biology, Geology or History fields or with no experience at all but who have an interest in reaching youth from urban, economically distressed portions of San Antonio who may not have ever been in an outside setting before.

The program will now be occurring mostly during winter and spring. These learning experiences could cover any number of topics regarding conservation including; native plants, recharge zones and aquifers; wildlife; endangered species; current topics in conservation for e.g.., animal sightings at the canyon; Skin and Skulls (a predator vs prey lesson) or Project WILD lessons and others not mentioned here.

We are hoping to have about 10 events for the year with about 30 students at each event. If there were more students, we will divide the lesson/talks/presentation to about 10-15 kids per presentation and rotate them from one to the other so presenters aren’t overwhelmed.

The focus of this project has been to locate youth from the most urban, economically distressed areas in San Antonio and we will be bringing them out here for field trips. The hope is they can learn and connect with Govt. Canyon SNA; a natural resource area they may not know about.

We hope that this will build a bridge for the well-being of the youth involved and the future of TPWD. At the minimum, we hope that whomever comes out here, will at least take a new, happy or inspirational experience home with them. For more information on the program, you can look at the synopsis of it here: https://trails2tomorrow.wordpress.com/