How the Wildlife Leadership Academy Changed My Life

This week’s blog was written by Graham, a Bass alum. Graham has been very active since attending field school this summer. He has started an Environmental Service Club (ESC) at his school, attended the HopeCAT leadership program, and is participating in WLA’s Pay It Forward student-driven fundraising campaign.

I learned about the Wildlife Leadership Academy (WLA) while searching for a local summer camp that one of my teachers was running. When I decided to sign up, I had no idea how influential those five days would be on my sophomore year of high school. WLA offered a few camp options: brook trout, turkey, bear, white-tailed deer, and bass, and since I fancy myself to be an extremely amateur fisherman, I opted for the bass camp. I (over)packed my bags and made the three-hour journey to get to the camp, and when I arrived it was nothing like I had expected. The camp was set pretty far back in the woods, down a gravel path, along which you could see rabbits, finches, and crows going about their business. We attended lectures by people in all branches of state conservation, learned about Pennsylvania’s six main watersheds, and delved deeply into learning about bass: their life cycle, habitat, diet, and threats to their survival.

We also learned how to be Conservation Ambassadors and focused on five types of outreach: education, service, media, creative arts, and outdoor mentorship. We were given lots of resources to help us promote conservation in our communities and to learn how to be the next generation of conservation leaders. We learned how to give media interviews and how to be active in local government. We met with professionals who talked to us about what we could do to become conservationists. When I left WLA I thought that besides the outreach projects, most of this wouldn’t be applicable to school, but I was wrong. My knowledge about pollution has helped me with a chemistry assignment, my trivia team occasionally faces questions about the knowledge I gained at field school, and best of all, I get to brag that I know more than my parents about a topic.

Going to field school inspired me to find ways to help my community. During the summer, I made tri-folds about bass in Pennsylvania so that I could place them in public spaces and share what I had learned with others. I also attended a youth leadership program run by HopeCAT, a local center for art and technology. Part of my training at HopeCAT was focused on entrepreneurship, and I focused on developing a product to sell at a local night market. In honor of the bass field school, I chose to design and produce largemouth bass Christmas ornaments and magnets. I decided to donate my profits from those sales to the WLA Pay It Forward campaign. At the end of the program, I was awarded a scholarship and then interviewed by my local paper, where the media training I’d received at WLA proved very helpful.

While I was off to a good start doing the outreach I’d been trained to do at field school, I knew I wanted to do something that would have a long-lasting impact on my community. I decided to found an Environmental Service Club (ESC) at my high school. Setting up the club meant jumping through bureaucratic hoops and even giving a speech before the school board to gain their approval. The ESC is now up and running with 18 members. I am working on lining up speakers from conservation professions to give presentations to our members. So far, a Pennsylvania game warden, a natural resources specialist with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and the leader of the national sustainability group at the American Automobile Association have all agreed to speak to us. We are also working with local conservation and sustainability groups as well as our district’s administration to set up environmental service projects for the club to do in our community. The club is still in the early stages, but I’m confident it will leave its mark on my community, and it exists purely because I attended field school at the Wildlife Leadership Academy.

The photos used in this blog belong to the Academy.