I continue to be impressed by our Natural Resources Conservation Academy (NRCA) Conservation Ambassador Program (CAP) students. We said goodbye to our 2017-2018 CAP cohort at the 12th Annual Connecticut Conference on Natural Resources, where they graduated as our newest Connecticut Conservation Ambassadors. The students presented their work during a poster session, and described the impacts they made in their communities to over 300 environmental professionals. Check out their posters to learn more about their hard work! Several organizations, including land trusts, Connecticut Audubon, and DEEP, reached out to individual students with internships and other opportunities because of their projects. And, to top it all off, three CAP students will be starting as freshman at UConn this Fall! We’re very proud.
And, we have some more excitement on the way. With just under five weeks to go before our 2018 Field Experience (and a few more weeks than that for our Conservation Training Partnerships and Teacher Professional Learning programs), things are busy, busy, busy in the NRCA office. Our 2018-2019 CAP students come from all over the Connecticut, and are eager to begin their conservation projects.
As a teaser for what’s to come over the next year, we’ll have projects on bobcat distributions, invasive water chestnut monitoring, interpretive trail installations, and wetland ecological restoration along the coast—just to name a few. And, we’ll be partnering with organizations like Salisbury Associated Land Trust, Trout Unlimited, Connecticut River Conservancy, Great Hollow Nature Preserve and Ecological Research Center, and more. Needless to say I’m eager to see where these CAP students take their work. To follow along as this journey continues, check us out on Facebook!