The Conservation Fund’s Focus on Youth Education

The Conservation Fund works to connect children to the places we love as well as to support educational opportunities to foster a stewardship ethic that sustains healthy, vibrant communities.

After the 2011 “America’s Great Outdoors” report cited access challenges and lacking outdoor education and recreation opportunities, The Conservation Fund joined partners to create “Outdoor Nation.” This group is works introduce young people to outdoor adventure. By conserving and adding to summer camps, scout camps, parks and other open spaces that invite youth and families to be active, try new things and have fun, TCF connects children and nature throughout America’s communities.

In 2012, The Conservation Fund’s Conservation Leadership Network partnered with the international transportation company CSX to sponsor the creation of Moving Freight: Economy and Atmosphere, a curriculum to teach school-age students that the train tracks they drive over and the trucks they pass on the highway are connected to a world-wide web of industry, culture, commerce and environmental impact. The curriculum is designed to provide four activities that build with increasing complexity — or to be used as stand-alone modules — to help meet curricular goals in mathematics, economics and science. Students from grades 3-12 also learn about the carbon cycle and the environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels coupled with a comparison of calculated carbon footprints of freight transportation modes.