Regenerative Agriculture

Interactive Outdoor Education

Youth Ecological Restoration Projects

Youth Ecology Centers (YEC) are the heartbeat and hub for all YES related activities. Youth Ecology Centers will coordinate and organize program services, and will serve as regional on-site locations.

The goal of each regional Youth Ecology Center is to have a home base where youth can organize to partner with and serve the larger community, as aligned with YES mission. Each YEC will have a large garden and Regenerative Agriculture (RA) demonstration site. In addition, each site is free to pursue creating spaces that benefit and compliment the larger community / natural surroundings.

Youth Ecology Centers will host community events and special seasonal gatherings, community workshops and classes, youth art shows, potlucks, dances, and daily structured activities such as after school programs or school field trip tours.

The goal of YES is to remain carbon negative in all site energy utilization.

The Regenerative Agriculture program is where hands meet the Earth. Each demonstration site is dedicated to producing healthy, organic produce! But more importantly, RA focuses on building the skills and knowledge for a new generation of food producers!

Youth enrolled in the RA program will support and maintain the demonstration site and participate in each stage of food production, learning regenerative agricultural techniques throughout. Youth will also have opportunities to tour additional regenerative agricultural sites within their regions.

RA seeks to partner with local farms and ranches to support in enhancing local sites to improve soil conditions, reduce erosion, slow down and sink water running through their land, promote sustainable grazing practices, and reduce the utilization of pesticides and herbicides where applicable.

Interactive Outdoor Education (IOC) offers youth the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature and to directly witness and learn about their world.

IOC will support youth in developing eco-literacy skills, understanding and supporting the health of local watersheds, learning native vs invasive plant species, animal tracking and habitat identification, and much more.

IOC seeks to partner with schools to promote environmental education opportunities through enhancing on-site applications. IOC also creates opportunities to travel to off site locations to directly experience the natural world, guided by trained and knowledgeable staff. IOC offers age appropriate curriculum to keep each phase of development engaged and happy.

IOC meets youth where they are at, and inspires each step towards a connection with the natural world. We believe early positive experiences and a sense of confidence while in nature fosters the ability to advocate and care for our shared spaces.

The Youth Ecological Restoration Projects (YERP) program gives youth the opportunity to directly participate in plant and animal conservation practices.

YERP empowers youth to identify needs in their local community in order to create project proposals for town and county resources. Where applicable, youth will be integrated into executing environmental restoration project proposals.

YERP will teach environmental conservation practices such as native plant re-habitation, seed harvesting and saving, invasive removal, erosion control, tree planting, propagation, water testing, trail maintenance, animal conservation practices by region, and more.

YERP is designed to support a skill building pipeline into conservation and environmental work for youth.