WildLink Summary
Partners
Goals
Safety Concerns
Cost
Participating Schools and Organizations
Contact

What is WildLink?

WildLink does not simply send youth on a one-time wilderness expedition. Being a part of the program means that students benefit from a wide array of opportunities designed to provide leadership training and personal empowerment, giving them tools to change their own lives as well as their home communities. WildLink works with its participants months before and years after their expeditions. These opportunities include:

1. Pre-trip visits in which WildLink students and their families can meet WildLink staff and have their questions and concerns about this new wilderness experience addressed.

2. Expeditions in which 108 youth participate each year in hands on research projects, and challenge themselves emotionally, physically and academically in a completely new way.

3. Wilderness Ambassador Program, in which students impact 1100 underserved Californians annually through ambassador projects designed to empower youth as community leaders. These projects take on many different forms, including presentations to their classes and school boards, or local stewardship projects.

4. WildLink Family Weekend, in which youth return to Yosemite with their family members for a free weekend at our WildLink Family Weekend. Alumni relish the opportunity to take on the role of guide as they share their wilderness experiences with the people closest to them.

5. Internships and career opportunities with the WildLink/NPS Bridge program, as well as one-on-one mentoring from the WildLink staff for individuals who are motivated to seek positions in environmental education and park and forest management.

6. Website outreach, which includes a webpage of journal entries, photos and artwork for every student who has participated in our program.

Through these programs, WildLink students push themselves in a variety of ways: as athletes, by backpacking at high elevation in often challenging conditions, and summiting mountain peaks; and as writers and artists, by completing detailed field journals and writing about their experiences. They learn self-reliance and how to become leaders among their peers and in their communities, through our wilderness ambassador projects and youth leadership summit program. They also gain a lifelong connection to the recreational, spiritual, and emotional opportunities that can be found in wild places.

WildLink Curriculum

WildLink delivers science, language arts, and history lessons directly to classrooms via the WildLink website and brings culturally diverse students from your school to the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada on WildLink expeditions. While on the five-day expeditions, students participate in hands-on research projects that are used to inform public lands managers' decisions about our public lands. The expedition's data, journals, photographs, and video clips are available for use in the classroom on the WildLink web site. Live chats with natural resource professionals add interest to classroom curriculum and special web-based projects on the Buffalo Soldiers of the Sierra Nevada and Obata's Yosemite flesh out the historical context of wild places from culturally diverse American perspectives. Wilderness is an unparalleled medium for teaching science lessons to young adults.

Research shows that student immersion in pristine settings is often regarded as one of the best experiences of the student's life and has a major impact on personal and intellectual development. In addition, the academically rigorous activities included in the WildLink expedition and the wilderness nature of the expedition itself is shown to improve test scores and affect career interest (Kellert 1998). Since not all students are able to visit wilderness, the students on the WildLink expeditions serve as ambassadors for their peers in the classroom.

WildLink Partners

WildLink is directed by the USDA Forest Service, USDI National Park Service, and The Yosemite Institute. It is implemented with the assistance of the following partners:

Sequoia Natural History Association
Iglehart Wilderness Foundation
Stuart Foundation
Stewardship Council Youth Investment Program
The American Alpine Club
The Arthur Carhart Wilderness Training Center
The Sierra Nevada Wilderness Education Project
The Sequoia Field Institute
University of California, Merced
The University of Montana's Wilderness Institute
Wilderness.net
The Yosemite Fund
Recreational Equipment Incorporated

WildLink Goals

To encourage students to pursue higher education
To provide opportunities for students to pursue careers related to natural resources.
To have wilderness become relevant to the culturally diverse student in California
To engage students in the study of wilderness with standards-based curriculum and hands-on experiences
To empower youth as agents for positive change in their home communities through community stewardship projects
To create a human bridge between the underserved communities and public lands through our Wilderness Ambassador program

Safety Concerns

The service provider for the expeditions is the Yosemite Institute, a nationally acclaimed environmental teaching institute. They have an exemplary safety record and some of the best-trained outdoor teaching staff in the western United States. While on the expedition, the student is supervised by the school chaperone (usually a teacher), a WildLink staff member, and Yosemite Institute instructors.

Cost

WildLink, the Yosemite Institute, the National Park Service, USDA Forest Service and various foundations cover the $2000.00 per student tuition, which includes an entire year of program opportunities designed to create a strong and lasting bond between participants and their public lands and communities.

Participating Schools

Oakland ReLeaf, Oakland
Madera High School, Madera
San Joaquin County Office of Education, Stockton
Kingsburg High School, Kingsburg
Harbor City Boys and Girls Club, Los Angeles
Reedley High School, Reedley
Animo High School, Los Angeles
Fresno Boys & Girls Club, Fresno
Delta Vista High School, Stockton
Turlock High School, Turlock
Vista High School, Richmond
Contra Costa Middle College, Richmond
Merced High School, Merced

Contact the WildLink Program Director
for more information:
Mandy Vance
WildLink/Wilderness
Yosemite National Park
PO Box 577
Yosemite, CA 95389
(209) 372-0607
mandy_vance@partner.nps.gov