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During Eagle Eye’s hands-on training programs young adults learn marketable skills from industry professionals who help provide a bridge those who seek additional opportunities into potential internships, seasonal placements, and additional training opportunities within the natural resource and green industry fields.
There is a need for programs that both create 1) environmental awareness and responsibility among urban people, especially youth, and that 2) help young urban people develop skills that could assist them to not only become environmental stewards of their communities, but make informed choices that provide a healthier more sustainable future and enter careers in the natural resource, environmental, and or green industry fields.
Why Career bridging programs?
- There is a growing need for a skilled environmental workforce and an informed populace.
- Urban youth of color represent in Eagle Eye’s experience a vast untapped resource of talent, energy, creativity, and passion that can be leveraged through a relatively simple yet powerful shift in the relationship the youth have to and with the natural world and the natural resource community.
- Baby boomers will be aging out over the next 10 years.
- The existing horticulture, nursery, and landscape sectors of the green industry are experiencing consistent growth.
- The renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors are emerging and already experiencing a shortage of workers.
- Low income urban communities are not yet being sufficiently included in these new pipelines of training and employment.
Career bridging Program components:
- Champion
- A youth group of 10 to 15 youths (except in case of Intro to Arboriculture)
- A natural site where hands-on training and demonstrations can take place
- Working industry professionals to serve as role models, instructors, and mentors who provide knowledge and context, a sense of being part of a larger community, and a link to future opportunities
Introduction to Arboriculture
Groundskeeping Introduction
Landscaping Basics
Urban and Community Forestry Introduction
Land Management Basics
C fair and or industry trade show such as New England Grows
Urban young adults placed in seasonal positions with land conservation and private landscape companies
Young adults make more positive choices at home, work, and in the community
Young adults seek additional opportunities to share their passion with others from their communities
Young adults seek additional environmental positions
This full-day program introduces young people to career opportunities within the green industry field. They meet and interact with professional arborists. They are introduced to some of the marketable skills required to work in the green industry and begin networking with green industry employers. The young adults participate in “hands on training stations” which are facilitated by arborists and other green industry professionals.
Tree removal operation - equipment, process and demonstration
Tree climbing with ropes -equipment and climbing styles
Tree health care - pruning, planting and insect and disease identification
Careers in Arboriculture - employment possibilities and education opportunities
Participants spend two full days at a natural site working with natural resource professionals to learn and practice skills applicable to the responsibilities of a groundskeeper. The first day is spent with seasonal hands-on activities related to groundskeeping in the winter, such as tool sharpening and tool demonstrations followed by a second day where the students use what they learned in the first day to complete a groundskeeping project. Projects include clearing and restoring rock walls and pruning trees.
Youth spend two days at a natural site working with natural resource professions to learn and practice skills applicable to the responsibilities of a landscaper working in a public setting. The first day is spent exploring different types of landscaping positions and the responsibilities of each. They also create a work plan for the project they will do when they return for the second day. Projects include cleaning the grounds, enhancing a parking lot at a wildlife sanctuary and clearing/burning trees and branches around a heavily used campground.
Participants spend one day at a natural site learning about urban and community forestry and the importance of soil and water quality in urban and rural forests. Time is spent reviewing tree identification skills, taking tree measurements and testing the soil compaction. For the second day of the forestry introduction youth participate in an urban stewardship project in their city. City arborists and other natural resource or community professionals join the young people in their effort to make a lasting impact on their urban forest.
The young people begin with an introduction to the competing needs of multiple users of conservation land: the wildlife, the public, and the natural resource through taking part in a simulation of a town hearing on 100 acres of land donated to a community. They are then introduced to property management by seeing and having explained the management plan for the property where they are located. The young people then complete a stewardship project that they saw described on the management plan, reviewing the ways it serves the different interests of the three primary interest groups.
This day will be spent with a natural resource professional surveying a body of water to determine if the body of water can be considered a vernal pool.
Students will use science based methods and tools for gathering and interpreting data.
Students will also learn what criteria are used to classify a body of water as a vernal pool and why it is important to protect them and the wildlife associated with them.
This event is designed to raise awareness about the field of arboriculture and brings together professional arborists and volunteers. Urban young people work alongside professional arborists and other volunteers to plant prune, remove, transplant and fertilize trees. They are exposed to a variety of different aspects of the field of arboriculture (tree climbing, crane work, tree removal, etc.). It is a great opportunity to meet and talk with arbor company representatives. MAA is a professional trade organization that serves the commercial arboriculture industry. The MAA advances its goals through education, research, support, certification, and promotion of the value of arboriculture to the public.
Career bridging programs are enhanced by our 3-day Learn More About Forests™ program |
