Hands on Youth Education
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Every year, PPCTU utilizes the help of an army of volunteers to help introduce topics of conservation to youth in classroom environments. In this way, we can foster the growth of young people in a direction that includes conscious awareness of their own rivers and streams right here in our own backyards.
We teach young students ages K-12 though College level, about the fragile habitat of the Greenback Cutthroat Trout in Bear Creek on Pikes Peak in El Paso County – emphasizing places and concepts they are familiar with, such as the Dog Park, the Bear Creek Nature Center, Pikes Peak – and we create connections for them between these familiar places and abstract ideas, such as climate change, dissolved oxygen and the fish as an animal, eating, breathing, living in a cold stream, to name a few ideas.
After the initial talk and questions about nature-related topics and including their personal contributions and life experiences, we direct the topic to fly fishing and commence in either teaching them how to tie a fly pattern emulating an aquatic animal, or we teach them to cast and / or catch and release a trout.
PPCTU volunteers show up to these events mostly to assist and set up the materials, assemble rods or put vises together. A team leader will address the class and give the lecture on conservation. Our volunteers are never in the line of making decisions or having to acquire specific knowledge. Volunteering should be a pleasant and easy experience at these events.
PPCTU provides all the gear: Fly tying vises, tools, materials, etc. fly rods, reels lines, leader, tippet, flies, split shot, floatant, etc. – anything the volunteers may need in order to help the students acquire skills.
PPCTU always invites the students to consider helping our cause down the road – join up on a Clean The Dream Stream or participate in Creek Week or come with their family to help plant willows.
In this way, PPCTU educational outreach projects are a tool = a mechanism for spreading the concepts related to conservation and restoration of fragile riparian habitat in our region. Education of Our Youth = the future.
We teach young students ages K-12 though College level, about the fragile habitat of the Greenback Cutthroat Trout in Bear Creek on Pikes Peak in El Paso County – emphasizing places and concepts they are familiar with, such as the Dog Park, the Bear Creek Nature Center, Pikes Peak – and we create connections for them between these familiar places and abstract ideas, such as climate change, dissolved oxygen and the fish as an animal, eating, breathing, living in a cold stream, to name a few ideas.
After the initial talk and questions about nature-related topics and including their personal contributions and life experiences, we direct the topic to fly fishing and commence in either teaching them how to tie a fly pattern emulating an aquatic animal, or we teach them to cast and / or catch and release a trout.
PPCTU volunteers show up to these events mostly to assist and set up the materials, assemble rods or put vises together. A team leader will address the class and give the lecture on conservation. Our volunteers are never in the line of making decisions or having to acquire specific knowledge. Volunteering should be a pleasant and easy experience at these events.
PPCTU provides all the gear: Fly tying vises, tools, materials, etc. fly rods, reels lines, leader, tippet, flies, split shot, floatant, etc. – anything the volunteers may need in order to help the students acquire skills.
PPCTU always invites the students to consider helping our cause down the road – join up on a Clean The Dream Stream or participate in Creek Week or come with their family to help plant willows.
In this way, PPCTU educational outreach projects are a tool = a mechanism for spreading the concepts related to conservation and restoration of fragile riparian habitat in our region. Education of Our Youth = the future.
Last year, PPCTU taught 22 projects for classes of with about 200 youth overall, to tie flies and fly fish. This year, 2023, we have 25 projects lined up. If you are interested in possibly helping as a volunteer, please contact V.P. of Education, Michele White; [email protected].
Thank you.
Thank you.
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