WildLink Celebrates Wilderness with the Fresno Grizzlies

Wildlink joined forces with the Sierra National Forest’s Central California Consortium in a multi-cultural celebration of Wilderness in California's Great Central Valley on June 26, 2004. This event allowed underserved youth and family members from the Fresno area to spend an afternoon and an evening celebrating Wilderness at Fresno’s Grizzly baseball stadium.
The participating 550 children and families were given tickets to attend a Fresno Grizzly baseball game. During the game, the fans participated in an Education Fair with exhibits and demos highlighting the National Wilderness Preservation System and its values and relevance to their lives. WildLink also provided a portable climbing wall for this group of 550 underserved youth and family members, in addition to the general public attending the game. Four WildLink student alumni from Parlier High School and WildLink staff hosted a wilderness education booth, through which all participants had to pass before climbing on the rock wall.
In addition to celebrating wilderness with education, the entire stadium also sang Happy Birthday to Wilderness in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, and a cake was accepted on its behalf by the local WildLink student alumni. More than 750 people had a direct educational experience about wilderness as a result of this event, and up to 19,000 of the general public were exposed to the idea of wilderness.

WildLink Joins UC Merced for Teacher Training Weekend 2004

WildLink is expanding its relationship with UC Merced with a very special teacher training weekend October 8-10, 2004. The workshop will be a combined effort between WildLink's Mandy Vance and UC Merced's Sam Traina, who is going to give us use of both the UC Research station in Wawona along with his very well-trained research faculty.

Teachers involved will be affiliated not only with the WildLink program, but will also include Central Valley high school teachers key to the recruitment of first generation college attendees from the Central Valley.

All sessions will be geared toward giving teachers solid science tools and skills that they can use in the classorom to link students to both wilderness and continuing education.

Three Cheers for Parlier!

I'd like to send out a very special thank you and recognition to a group of WildLink alumni who were real shining stars this summer. Francisco,Jessica, Lawrence and Olga from WildLink's Expedition IV,2004, fulfilled their ambassador requirements by working as wilderness educators at the Grizzly Stadium event. Their duties included helping at the climbing wall (and doing some great climbing themselves), educating hundreds of people in one-on-one wilderness lessons, and leading wilderness-related games with the 150 youth who stayed the night at the stadium. They committed themselves to a multitude of planning meetings, which they all cheerfully and faithfully attended, and brought a wealth of experience and knowledge to hundreds of kids who really needed it. Thank you, Olga, Jessica, Francisco and Lawrence. You are the kind of people who will ensure that our wilderness will be here for generations to come.

Know someone in your community who's doing something for wilderness? Let us know, and we'll consider them for recognition in the news! Just e-mail me at mandy_vance@partner.nps.gov.