"changing lives through service to nature"

The Student Conservation Association (SCA) is America's largest and oldest provider of national and community conservation service opportunities, outdoor education and career training for youth. 

I was co-leader of a conservation work program at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.. My training in June, 2000 in Colorado included 5 days of "Work Skills" (base camp, trail construction and maintenance, rock bars and walls, wood steps and bridges, etc.) and 10 days of medical training to become a certified Wilderness First Responder. A synopsis of  my  4 week program in Aug, 2000 can be found below.

This is the first SCA "Bravo" team at Petrified Forest National Park (PFNP). The crew of 6 was lead by 2 "first time" crew leaders. The beautiful setting, home luxuries, and great support from the agency made it a success in our eyes. PFNP’s Resource Management, Maintenance and the Interpretive Department all made the support of our crew their top priority. They stated this up front and followed through every time. The work projects were appropriate for the group and gave them a sense of accomplishment.

Participants: This was a "Bravo" crew - 6 students and two crew-leaders, for this first program for PFNP. The students were between 16 and 18 years old, all with middle to upper-middle class backgrounds. Five of the students live in the Northeast (NY, NJ, VA) and one lives in California. Two of the female students were Asian – one of them having lived in the US for less than 3 years. Language and social skills were not an issue. Most of the students had previous experience as volunteers (not SCA), and several had outdoor, camping or life saving/CPR training. As a group they are high achievers, involved in extra-curricular school activities and some had attended elective summer classes or taken college campus trips before joining the crew.

Base Camp: The August temperature in Northeast AZ reach into the high 90s every day with the humidity around 30%. PFNP (at 5k feet elevation) is categorized as a "short grass prairie" because it receives about 9 inches of rain each year. The bulk of this rain comes as "monsoons" during the late afternoon hours – usually in August. Unfortunately this weather pattern was just beginning to develop as our program completed. There are no lakes, rivers or streams – only a few temporary muddy trickles in the "Dry Washes" after a rain. All water is pumped in from a nearby Indian reservation. As a result, this desert ecology can be summed up in one word - HOT! To exist in this environment, we lived in Park housing (3 br/ 2 bath) with running water, electricity, air conditioning (swamp cooler) and refrigeration.

The housing complex included other Park personnel and volunteers (but no tourists or campers) and afforded easy access to telephones, laundry facilities, mail and a diner. As crew leaders, we were concerned about how this environment would affect group dynamics and/or result in abuse of urban privileges (food, telephone, mail, etc.). As it turned out – no problem. The team formed, normed, stormed, and performed as a unit. They handled these urban conveniences without restriction or abuse. A bigger plus was the availability of the Park Interpretative staff to present several programs – defined in section 7 below. The two negative consequences were:

Work Projects: Most of our projects were in areas of the Park frequented by visitors. We used 2 rental vans to travel the 25 miles on the Park paved road (and some restricted dirt roads) to/from these projects. Occasionally we used Park pickup trucks to transport material and tools. Most work days started at 7am (to avoid the heat of the day) and, depending upon where we were in the project and the type of project, finished sometime between 1:30 and 4 p.m. Projects included:

Recreation Activity in Camp

The visit by Rick Covington was a big hit. The students were impressed that SCA cared enough to send a supervisor who talked to them, and then more impressed when he not only worked with us but "wanted to get dirty". The ice cream desert he provided didn’t hurt his reputation.

Group Impact: Some of the efforts we took to minimize impact were:

Recreation Trip: We backpacked for four days in the Wilderness area of the Alpine District in Sitgreves National Forest along the KP Trail. We wanted an "easy" relaxing route since it was the first experience many of them had on an extended backpacking trip. The route was slightly over 18 miles and stayed between 7,000 and 9,500 ft. The cooler temperatures at 9k ft. were also attractive.

Our hike was a loop – beginning and ending at the KP Rim trailhead. The first two days were a little longer than we had planned. We hiked between 6 and 7 miles both days because the water sources were not as dependable as we had hoped. This led to short and easy hikes for the remainder of the trip.

Wilderness areas are sparsely marked and we used our compass and map reading skills several times to reorient ourselves and locate interconnecting trails. I thought we did a good job in teaching backwoods skills, but there is nothing so humbling as direct feedback. When asked what the most important backpacking skill she had learned on this trip, one student remarked "how to cook marshmallows over a campfire".

Environmental Education Programs: We made extensive use of the Park Interpretative Staff for special programs that included:

The Park library was used to provide information on dangers of the desert environment:

Education Value of This Program to Participants: The students learned about: