Youth Education and Workforce Training
In a time of increasing climate destabilization, students are keen to learn more about the challenges they will face when they become the primary stewards of local ecosystems. Establishing deep connections to the land through stewardship is a proven way to reduce climate anxiety and empower the leaders of the future.
Youth Education Programs
Our educational offerings revolve around deepening a connection to place and developing skills for an economy based in ecological stewardship. We offer a hands-on learning laboratory to explore restoration forestry practices, such as surveying and stand management, animal husbandry, natural building, biochar production, and agroforestry projects. Participants help manage the orchard and harvest its fruit; they yard logs through the forest and mill lumber; and they walk CRL’s nature trails, observing the sounds and smells of the riparian area.
We offer programming for children of all ages during both the school year and summer. Participants open up to the wonders of nature through forest walks, apple cider pressing, earthen building, interacting with friendly sheep and chickens, and much more.
Our campus is an ideal landscape for students' natural curiosity, and our staff are eager to share ecological wisdom gleaned through decades of practice. If you are interested in bringing a youth group, contact: Drew Thomas.
Workforce Training
We are actively working with South Lane School District and especially Al Kennedy High School to support youth in developing skills for an economy based in ecological stewardship.
These programs respond to an identified need for a more skilled workforce in the emergent sector of restoration forestry. It is our hope that workforce training for this sector will include all aspects of land management including surveying and managing woodlots, developing forestlands that produce a diversity of outcomes including fruit, nut, and meat production to lumber, furniture, and biochar production.
