NUCFAC PLT Greenschools! YLINC Summer 2014 Day 6 and 7: Birthday and Farewells

The whole gang celebrating Smokey's birthday at the Texas Forestry Museum in Lufkin They had a blast dressing up in period costumes!

The campers enjoyed their last days here at YLINC.

Saturday was largely a day freed up so that they can enjoy the weather, the kayaking, and the fun of camping on the shores of Lake Sam Rayburn, although we did stop by the Texas Forestry Museum to wish Smokey Bear happy 70th birthday! Woodsy Owl also gave him well wishes, and the students got to explore what life was like in the times when trees were being felled all over East Texas.

The students reflected on their time at camp and evaluated their experiences, and overwhelmingly said it was a life changing one.

Woodsy Owl taking a Canoe ride on Lake Sam Rayburn

On Sunday, the students packed up and said goodbye. Each camper received a certificate, awarding them for the unique way they contributed to the Youth Leadership in Nature Challenge of Summer 2014.

Their very last stop was Scott's Ridge Day Use Recreation Area in the Sam Houston National Forest. Ten years ago, Scott's Ridge was only a boat ramp, with hundreds of Latino families gathered around it every weekend. One young master's student did her thesis on the efficacy of a program that could reach out to the Spanish speaking community with messages of conservation and stewardship. Soon she was handing out trash bags, talking about litter and the National Forest System and getting Spanish speakers involved in the environment. That research project led to the growth of Latino Legacy, which led to the creation of the Friends of the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas, as well as the designation of Scott's Ridge as a day use area. 

That master's student was Tamberly Conway, who has been a tornado of support and enthusiasm since FNFGT began. We thank her for all her support from the bottom of our hearts, and we are glad we have her as a friend.

One last bit of natural relaxation at Scott's Ridge Day Use Area.

Stay tuned to this blog for more updates on FNFGT's projects, events and volunteer opportunities, and thank you for being a loyal reader!

NUCFAC YLINC Summer 2014 Day Two: Watercolors and Kayaks!

Della Barbato with a puffer fish at the Galveston Island State Park Nature Center

Early in the morning, our campers took a trip to Galveston Bay, to kayak with watercolors and clipboards in hand.

NUCFAC PLT YLINC Summer 2014 Day One - Amazing things to sea!

Peppers from the Stephen F. Austin High School garden. Deliciously organic!

We began at Stephen F. Austin High School, on Houston's East End. For years, Austin High School has been one of the most active members of our unified network of Project Learning Tree Greenschools!, completing several environmental impacting projects, including rainwater catchment systems, a water conservation project, and extensive urban gardens. The Youth Leadership in Nature Challenge students harvest several fresh fruits and vegetables from the Austin gardens before we went south, towards the waters of Galveston.

NUCFAC PLT Greenschools! Spring Break YLINC 2014 Day 5 and 6

Friday was the last day the students would spend camping, and it easily could have been their best night.

We returned to Stephen F. Austin State University to the beautiful Pineywoods Native Plant Center, which maintains the historic Tucker House and the resplendent Tucker Woods park. The Tucker Woods is a bottomland hardwood environment with paved trails snaking throughout and lies adjacent to LaNana Creek in Nacogdoches, Texas, providing a natural escape and outdoor laboratory for SFASU faculty, staff and students.

Y-LINC Day Five - Conservation

One of the biggest concerns of the Friends of the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas is that we inform people about the natural resources that have been made available to them. Y-LINC campers go to see one of the most important resources offered to them and to landowners: expertise.

The Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) operates the East Texas Plant Materials Center (ETPMC) just outside of Nacogdoches, on the Stephen F. Austin Experimental Forest. SFASU partners with the Forest Service to manage the Experimental Forest as a living laboratory, in which discoveries that help use conserve our resources can germinate. The ETPMC spends every day finding, evaluating, and growing plants that solve conservation issues, like finding native grasses that can reduce the erosion caused by road construction, or developing techniques that can remove or stymie the spread of invasive species into Texas lakes. Alan Shadow, a conservationist at the ETPMC showed the students around his plant solutions lab, demonstrating seed sorters and explaining the purpose of some otherwise alien looking equipment, including super specialized seed planters and harvest customized for research plots.

Harvesting Clasping Coneflower, very carefully...

Students also harvested and planted Clasping Coneflower seeds right from a ETPMC research plot, preparing plugs that will grow in the humid greenhouse at the ETPMC, burst from the fecund dirt, and become transplants to be used in the many Greenschools that FNFGT is "planting" in Houston, including Lantrip Elementary. So even as we are exposing these teens to opportunities and new knowledge, their service learning projects are impacting students back at home, through the connections between FNFGT programs.

MMM... seeds

Tamberly Conway, Conservation Educator with the USFS, and John Boyette of the Texas Forest Service led the students on a short hike into the SFA Experimental Forest, then demonstrated the use of one the most important tool in a forester's vest: the increment borer. The students got to see first hand how a forester collects data on growth rates, which is of vital importance to making wise decisions about how to manage a forest.

Look at our new friend! Tamberly found this _____ under
the equipment at the NRCS, prompting a
spontaneous lesson on the importance of snakes!

The Stephen F. Austin Experimental Forest.

In closing out the day, Della ______ introduced the PLT Greenschools program to the students, and they began to do impact investigations on the Youth-LINC headquarters, acting as if it were a school they were going to help improve. FNFGT has established many Greenschools in the Houston area, and you can read about our success on the FNFGT main page (click the FNFGT logo in the upper right). PLT Greenschools is a student engaging program that challenges the student body to investigate how their school impacts the environment, develop a plan to change that impact, and write a grant to request funds to preform their project.

Naielli thinks that using an increment borers is hardcore. 

Our campers also got to learn an even more important skill than fire building from John Boyette: orienteering. Our students mastered the compass, learned their pace, and  practiced these skills on a course. Even if it took a few tries, all the groups managed to find their way.

Orienteering with John Boyette.

Tomorrow will be a free day for our kids, a time to absorb and reflect on what adventures they have had during the week. We invite all the campers, former and current, to comment on these blogs about what they thought about their times here, and to connect with FNFGT on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN to stay informed!

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Y-LINC Day Four: Lumberjacks

"I'm going to study ornithology" said Alberto Gomez on the van ride early in the morning.

Mind you, many of our Y-LINC campers were going to go to college, but it is always so amazing when someone comes into a program like Y-LINC, and keeps coming back, and now they know they want to have a life that has everything to do with outdoors, and they know how to get and where to get it.

Dr. Warren Conway explains telemetry.

Y-LINC had the first time ever opportunity this year to attend a bird-walk, hosted by Dr. Warren Conway of the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture at +Stephen F. Austin State University. Dr. Conway lent our participants binoculars and taught the nuts and bolts basics of bird calls and using the binoculars to spot birds. He told us there were thousands of bird species in the world and that some people spend their whole lives looking for the next one on their lists. He hid stuffed animal birds for the campers to find, and they did in fact find them. He also showed us the use of telemetry equipment, which SFASU scientists such as himself use to track animal movements.

Dr. Tamberly Conway, Conservation Educator with the USFS
and Dr. I-Kaui Hung, Professor of Spatial Science at
The Arthur Temple College of Forestry and
Agriculture at SFASU.

Wildlife research is not the only ambition that can be fulfilled at SFASU. Dr. I-Kuai Hung told us about the burgeoning field of Spatial Science and Geographic Technologies, which are the research and development behind the latest in map making technology and include powerful Geographic Information Systems which help us understand our world and our spaces better. This career feild is very important to the natural sciences, especially when it comes to creating plans that help us coexist with nature.

Then it was time to loosen up and get active at the Health and Physical Education Building, where a Campus Recreation expert invited us to play some team building games. The campers had a ball as they raced around playing elbow tag, working together to lower a tent pole to the ground, tying themselves in knots, and many others. All the games had the common theme of creating bonds with each other, turning strangers into friends. It was all great preparation for our last activity at SFASU: climbing the rock wall. Fears of awkwardness and heights were conqured simultaneously on Thursday.

Elbow Tag at the Health Science building.

Rock wall at the SFASU Rec Center

Once we returned home, John Boyette of the +Texas A&M Forest Service taught  a bit of Texas history with a tree cookie from the famous, one-of-a-kind Marshall Oak tree. John wove history into biology together as he showed the students how wider rings indicate faster growth, which may indicate more favorable growing conditions, such as a lack of competition. John illustrated the competion concept through the PLT lesson "Every Tree for Itself".

Alberto Gomez with a tree
cookie from the Sam Houston
Campaign Tree.

The next day would be another National Forest adventure, out to the land where nature helps to conserve itself...

Don't forget to check out more photos of today's events at our Flickr Photostream!

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Y-LINC Day Three: "The lake is calling and I must go"

Pretending to be beached walruses.

First thing in the morning after a warm pancake breakfast cooked by +Alberto Gomez and his team, our campers headed out the Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area in the Davy Crockett National Forest. They were briefed about alligator safety and swimming safety beforehand, and had a safe and fun time.

Group Photo!

Captain Chris Crane manages the law enforcement officers of the National Forests in Texas and Louisiana, and blessed us with his wisdom that afternoon. He shared what it was like to be a FS law enforcement officer and showed us his multiple survival kits that he carries with him on the job on a daily basis. The campers learned that the seeming disparate worlds of law enforcement in a city and law enforcement in the forest were not so different.

Treetops in the Forest

Mike Ross then spoke with us after lunch about what he does for the Forest Service: he manages the fleet for the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas. It's his job to make sure everyone has a vehicle, that every vehicle is maintained, that there is enough money for fuel, and that old vehicles are replaced in a timely manner. This sparked a lively discussion about how the Forest Service as well as the Texas Forest Service are doing research to develop alternative energy sources for vehicles.

Happy to serve!

The campers then traveled over to one of our favorite destinations for Y-LINC, a little environmental learning center called Treetops in the Forest. Founded and ran by Dr. Christine Kallstrom, the center has been teaching children about the environment for decades. The participants threw themselves into the task of cleaning up the lawn and the inside as best as they could. We then played Animal Charades from the Project WILD curriculum and walked a labyrinth constructed on the property, releasing our stress and personal problems to the healing, absorptive ground.

Then it was back to HQ, for swimming, quesadillas, and S'mores. As part of our leadership skills training, Dave Clipson started a truly thought provoking discussion on ethics, asking the students "How do you tell the difference between right and wrong." Dave gave them the body test to illustrate there are many factors at work in determining right versus wrong: including perhaps our own bodies. Dave had a few students hold one arm out straight, and the other hand held an object close to their chest. Dave pushed down on the free hand, while the student tried hard to push against it: when they held a cup water to their chest (something healthy), their arm was strong. When they held a cigarette to their chests, their arms couldn't resist Dave' s force, as if the body knew that cigarettes were bad for them. 

Tomorrow, we will be exploring a school that our kids may soon be calling their alma mater: Stephen F. Austin State University.

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Y-LINC Day Two: Fire and Water

Early birds put worms on hooks to go fishing on the Sam Rayburn Reservoir. Dave Clipson took several anglers out into the water to learn how to bait and cast.

Yum!

Anabelle, Jessica, Michele, and Tiffany (left to right)

Taking the bore out of chore, one spritz at a time...

Two of our campers made breakfast for everyone: Huevos Rancheros, out on the open fire. Teams were assigned to wash dishes, and they did it without complaint (one might even say they had fun doing it).

"Paddle faster! I hear banjos!"

Island life...

Then we explored a small island within Lake Sam Rayburn. Our campers went there by kayak and canoe, wearing life jackets and looking out for each other. Even when a pair of campers in a two-seater kayak were struggling to keep up, two of their fellow campers went back and helped them make it the rest of the way. They swam in the shallow waters around the island, with an osprey nest not too far in the distance. We left the island as clean we found it.

Julio made it to the island first, though he had the hardest
time with his kayak.

Swimming in Sam Rayburn

Over lunch, Dale Snyder, the Fire Management Supervisor for the Angelina and Sabine National Forests discussed fire management, the rigors of being a wildland firefighter for 22 years, how to stay safe and hydrated in an outdoor setting, and many other topics. Our campers showed their interest with nearly an hour's worth of questions.

"We match!"

Later, our campers learned another valuable outdoor skill: fire-building. The participants were broken into four teams, each led by a Y-LINC alum. Each team did their best to gather kindling, twigs, and small branches, and when they had finished, they were given a single match. The team who could light a fire that would last 5 minutes with that one match was the winner; Tracy, Tiffany, and Michele won first prize, a magnesium fire starter.

Dave took some of the campers on a tour of the surrounding area and they saw an albino doe that had been reported in the area. When they got back to camp, our students colored and cut-out their own "Flat Woodsy" (like the famous Flat Stanley educator tool). They will be posing with these Flat Woodsy's at various points in their journeys tomorrow, and each night we will celebrate the most creative pose.

To finish off the evening, John Boyette, a District Forester with the Texas Forest Service, taught our campers how to do one of the more popular Project Learning Tree activities: Tree Factory. Tommorow they will rise early to go to Ratcliff State Park and Treetops Learning center.

Of course Superman and Batman would be the cambium.

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Y-LINC 2013: Day One

Bienvenidos Amigoes! Welcome Friends!

Working in the idyllic SFA High Gardens, providing a green
break in the scenery for its students as well as food.

Our kids began the journey today with a service-learning project at Stephen F. Austin High School in Houston, where they worked on their school garden. That garden is part of a Project Learning Tree Greenschools! program. Greenschools! in a nutshell is a project in which a team of students investigates how their school impacts the environment, develops a plan to mitigate that impact, and implement their plan with grant funds from Project Learning Tree, thus making their school that much more environmentally friendly.

FNFGT has spurred similar efforts at Lantrip Elementary, as part of our "Greenschools Grapevine Initiative", which enables a student attending the schools in that Grapevine to get multiple chances to participate in impacting their school in meaningful ways. Y-LINC campers planted seedlings at Lantrip's garden. which again was part of a Greenschool project.

Then the students toured Nature's Way Biofuel plant, priming their minds for recycling and showing them how waste does not have to be wasted. Then, the +Texas A&M Forest Service gave them a tour of the +Red Cockaded Woodpecker habitat at the W.G. Jones State Forest in Conroe. Thanks goes out to Alex Schlueter and Ezequiel Villa for their expertise!

The kids still had energy even when
they arrived at HQ, around 7:00pm.

While they were on their trips this morning, Lyndi and Dave were getting some finishing touches ready at HQ, including filling 7+ water containers. Texas is hot, and we want are kids to be safely hydrated for their adventure. 

Our kids are learning real life skills here at Y-LINC: some helped to set the tables, brought down chairs and cleaned the dishes! Tomorrow, they will be assigned to the chores that make an event like this run smoothly by their youth leaders; everyone will get a chance to help with cooking food and cleaning up.

+Tracy Sanchez and +Naielli Hidalgo had their tents up first!

Though the light was waning, our Y-LINC campers pitched their tents and got settled in for the night, ready for what tomorrow has in store. They will be hiking, fishing, getting organized, and will get to meet Dale Synder, a FS wildland firefighter.

Dinner under starry strings of lights and solar lanterns.

We now got a photo album on Flickr! Check it out here! We also have convenient links all our social media sites in the top left, and visit our main page for more info! Like us, Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and subscribe to this blog for more updates!

Orientation provided by +David Clipson,
+Tamberly Conway and +John Boyette

Special thanks to our donors! Without you, Y-LINC would be alot less fun!

+Stephen Kob - Supporter

+David Clipson - Supporter

+Tamberly Conway - Supporter and Donor

+Warren Conway - Supporter and Donor

+Ed McClure - Supporter 

+Tracy Sanchez - Supporter, Donor and Fundraiser

+Alma D. Garcia - Supporter and Donor

+Anthony Gonzalez - Supporter

+Lorraine Gibson - Supporter and Donor

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Y-Linc 2013: Preparation Day

We are preppers on this day.

Our Magnificent Headquarters. 

We are breaking out the tents, getting out sleeping mats from storage, digging the fire pit, watching the osprey fly over the awesome lake view and listening for campers that are not quite here yet, but will be soon.

Tomorrow, our 10 campers and 5 Y-Linc alums will arrive at our home base.  Their first task will be to choose their tents and assemble them on the shores of the Sam Rayburn Reservoir, where they will spend their first night of the week under the stars. Some will be sleeping in tents for the very first time. 

We have been told there are hogs in the area, so we will see what adventures await us; hopefully none involving them, or skunks, our outdoor friends from afar.

Thus begins our Y-LINC adventure! Check out our photo album on our Facebook page, and be sure to click that "Like" button to get updates! Connect to our Twitter and LinkedIn pages too!

So in closing, we make this introductory wish, based on an old Irish blessing, on behalf of our campers:  

Our Youth will be camping here, along the shores of
Lake Sam Rayburn (no sleeping indoors for them!)

"May your troubles be less, 

and your blessings be more, 

and nothing but happiness 

come through your tent door!"

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Youth-LINC 2012 - Day Three

It may be safe to say that our drought is over, with as many days that it has rained this week.

But our campers spirits were high, as you can see campers Naielli Hidalgo, Blanca Garcia, and Alma Garcia turned breaking camp into the rain as another chance to giggle, as they're pictured trying to squeeze as much water as they can out of their tent in the middle of a rainstorm. We left Cagle wet, but we still left on time. Mike Ross (USFS Fleet Manager) gave a very relevant safety meeting on the dangers of flooding, warning us to stay out of creek bottoms even if the rain has ceased. After filling our ice chests with ice and water, we traveled to Houston.

Naielli, Alma, Blanca, and Enelidad drying out their tent
with love at Cagle Recreation Area.

Many of the campers grew up in Houston suburbs, and 4 of them went Youth-LINC's destination on Wednesday, to Stephen F. Austin High School. Lantrip Elementary, Jackson Middle School, and Austin High School are official Project Learning Tree Greenschools! due to the efforts of FNFGT, the school administration, and most importantly, the student body itself. Youth-LINC campers Naielli Hidalgo and Blanca Garcia performed a Greenschools! investigation that led to the installation of a 300 gallon rainwater catchment system. Duy Tran and Derek Morrison, biological engineers from Texas A&M University, assisted in the project's design.

Duy Tran (foreground left) and Derek Morrison
(foreground right)  explain the rainwater
catchment system at Stephen F. Austin High School 

Austin High earned its Green School status via its commitment to the environment and its decades old school garden/park area on campus. Youth-LINC showed its commitment by installing a sign commemorating the formation of the Greenschools! "Grapevine", weeded part of the garden, and installed smaller signs labeling the plants there.

Lantrip Elementary, Jackson Middle School, and Austin High
school are all on the Greenschool "Grapevine". The
Youth-LINC campers painted and installed this sign. 

After Austin High, we traveled to the Stephen F. Austin State park. Everyone carefully laid their belongings out to dry on clotheslines they hung themselves. Julio, Alberto, Andre, Franco Gonzales, and Blanca competed against eachother in a chili eating contest, using chiles harvested from the Austin High garden. The results were hilarious, and will be posted on FNFGT's Facebook page.

Alberto Gomez, Andre Saenz, Julio Bedolla, and Franco Gonzales before their faces were soaked in tears from their Chili-Eating contest. Blanca Garcia also participated. Watch the battle on our Facebook page! 

After dinner, the Campers puzzled out the sailor's knot, a leadership exercise that teaches interdependence and perseverance. The campers were tied together in a knot that looked impossible to get out of, but if they thought outside the box and worked together, they could slip out.

We also celebrated the birthday of one of our long time Amigoes, Lyndi Long. Lyndi had been with us since 2008, and led students at Youth-LINC last year. We are all very happy for her, and hope to have many more years of her enthusiasm and education ability.

Tomorrow, we will be tour Stephen F. Austin State park and a recycling plant in Houston, among a tornado of other activities.

Youth-LINC 2012 - Day Five

We have left the places we went better than we found them.

Youth-LINC 2012's theme is service learning, and consistent to our theme, the campers have planted gardens in the Sam Houston National Forest, weeded gardens at the Stephen F. Austin High School, and built signs celebrating a environmentally friendly, multi-school project. Friday, the camper left an impact at Stephen F. Austin State Park buy painting three signs for their park. Lisa Reznicek advised the campers on proper technique and thanked them for helping TPWD keep up with sign maintenance. Lisa also showed them the soon-to-open nature center at Stephen F. Austin State Park.

Youth-LINC 2012 painted 3 signs for TPWD.

Ivan Lara checking out the Rat Snake (behind glass) at the new Nature Center at Stephen F. Austin State Park.

We left Stephen F. Austin State Park early in the morning, on our way to the Austin area to discover the beauty of McKinney Falls State Park. Campers took a hike after pitching our tents over the limestone escarpment that covers the park. The waters of Onion Creek sliding over the rocks and leaping over the falls called the campers to go swim, and they answered at the Lower Falls. We spent most of the day there, absorbing the water and the sounds.

Franco Gonzales fishing at the Upper Falls...

... and everyone swimming at the Lower Falls at McKinney Falls State Park.

The rain-engorged Lower Falls. Nalleli and Blanca carefully stroll over the limestone escarpment.

Playful Nalleli posing with her butterfly compadre as she sits in the cool flow of Onion Creek at the Lower Falls.

After drying off, the campers were told of their great opportunity. Saturday, they are going to Outdoor Nation's Signature Summit at the University of Texas at Austin. Outdoor Nation is a non-profit focused on empowering young people to develop and sustain outdoor recreation among their own generation. Outdoor Nation believes that the future of outdoor recreation lies in young people like the Youth-LINC campers. They will spend 3-4 hours planning a project that will encourage more people to go outdoors. They will propose their project on Sunday along with a dozen other groups, and the best among them will be decided through a vote. The top 5 projects will win a some seed funding for their project.

Good luck at Outdoor Nation Austin Texas Youth-LINC 2012!!!

Youth-LINC 2012 - Day Four

Its rained 10 inches since we started on Monday. The rain still couldn't wash the smiles away. While another 5 inches was coming down this morning at Stephen F. Austin State Park, Youth-LINC spent time inside connecting to nature through a very human obsession: art.

Lisa Reznicek, Bachelors in Sculpture 2004 from University of Houston and Texas Parks and Wildlife Interpreter at Stephen F. Austin State Park, gave us a succinct lesson on drawing wildlife. By focusing on 4 simple aspects, thick outlines, soft shapes, composition, and details, all the campers found their drawing instantly improved. She challenged to draw a picture of animals from old magazines in 20 minutes, then in 5 minutes, then 1.5 minutes.

Lisa Reznicek of TPWD teaching us how to draw, and how to draw well.

Drawing nature is one way to express your land-ethic; some creators use trash to fabricate their visions, as we saw at the Waste Management Single Stream Recycling Center on Gasmer Rd in Houston, Texas. Laura Stein, Director of Education for Waste Management, took us to their unique Education Room. We marveled at how we all wanted a room like this, adorned in everything we threw away (see below and on our Facebook page).The Youth asked dozens of questions of Laura about how their works and what Waste Management does for the community (one of their contributions is funding Keep America Beautiful, and based on our discussion with Laura, FNFGT funding is a possibility).

The lambent and lavished Education Room at  Waste Managment's Single Stream Recycling Center

The boundless energy of youth was finally released at Iron Sports in Houston. Campers learned how to climb on the walls, how to belay, and most of all how to depend on each other. With one camper on the ground holding the rope in the rope lock and the other 15 feet in the air attached to that same rope, learning how be reliable and how to trust was inevitable. While some were frightened, or didn't think they could do it, they overcame their fear, through encouraging each other and being there for them.

Andre takes it to a whole other level!

Iron Sports employee ensuring Blanca Garcia has a safe climb.

Tomorrow, the strength of that teamwork will be shown, when they are given one of the greatest opportunities of the week.