SCA seeks to cultivate an environmentally conscious public that are empowered to be active stewards of our local and regional natural resources, including land, air, wildlife and water resources. SCA’s Environmental Education program has projects that seek to provide environmental education to our local community & to that end we give many talks & presentations, participate at local events & organize volunteer opportunities for our community members!
A large majority of SCA’s Education pillar program work is devoted to our local students. SCA works to provide low income youth & Tribal youth in our area with hands on, outdoor environmental educational experiences outside of their classrooms. We call this program our "living classroom".
SCA’s “Living Classroom” field trips gets kids out in their “own back yard” educating them about critical natural resources protection, habitat degradation & conservation issues such as biodiversity conservation & water quality protection (to name a few). With the help of numerous community volunteers and agency professionals our local youth are exposed to many natural resources career paths and study options. SCA seeks to educate, develop and empower the environmental stewards of the future with our education program work!
These field trips contain curriculum based on current, science based teachings on topics such as wildlife protection and conservation, water quality protection, habitat conservation, wetland science and much more and are taught by regional professionals. Students get to interact with area professionals in the fields of conservation biology, limnology, fisheries biology, hydrology, wildlife biology, environmental law, wildlife management and so many more. It is often said that if you cannot see it you cannot be it. Our program shows students the many possible career fields in STEM and environmental sciences available to them and they get to see first-hand just how cool the work these science professionals do every day is!
The “Living Classroom” field trips employ and utilize the known, successful and effective teaching and instruction methods associated with hands-on learning techniques. Where, students learn from partaking in activities, looking, feeling, smelling, taking a physically active role and engaging all of the senses – multisensory learning, rather than passively reading a book or attending an indoor, seated lecture. Students are immersed in the “living classroom” around them. “Evidence” has proven that youth (and many adults) tend to thrive in these tactile, multisensory learning situations and retain information at elevated percentages as compared to sedentary, indoor learning.
Further SCA has incorporated the evidence based practice of furthering teacher education and increasing teacher knowledge base, and thus effectiveness, by offering them the (free to them) opportunity to develop a strong, solid understanding of water sciences through certification in the University of Idaho Master Water Stewards program (also part outdoor learning and instruction techniques).
Our strategy to “solve the problem” is to identify the root of the cause (extreme lack of environmental, STEM education in Idaho) and actively engage it head on by educating our local youth! SCA’s “Living Classroom” program actively engages our regions students, educating and empowering them to be better stewards of our shared natural resources and planet, now and long into the future!
