AWLS School

Developed in 1976 and originally held in outfitters camps in Alaska, British Columbia and Wyoming, AWLS was a dream to protect the freedom to hunt by involving more students in wildlife conservation. As the passion of the SCI Foundation staff and volunteers grew, so did the vision until, in 1980, SCI Foundation leased Granite Creek Ranch in Wyoming. Realizing that more students could be reached by teachers in the classroom, the first teacher workshop was developed in 1977. What was once a dream has grown into a fully staffed educational center, accredited by the American Camp Association. Today more than 4,001 educators have graduated from the AWLS program. Alumni reach more than 1.2 million students in classrooms all across the country annually.

Each eight-day teacher workshop includes firearm safety, archery, fly tying, wilderness survival, outdoor interpretive techniques and wildlife conservation. Classroom instruction from professionals, combined with field trips involving the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the National Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provide the knowledge base that qualifies teachers to earn three graduate credit hours from the University of Colorado (Course credit is optional).

For more information on dates, registration deadlines and how to qualify for one of the workshops at the American Wilderness Leadership School, visit www.safariclubfoundation.org

Our Idaho Chapter has sponsored several local teachers to attend the AWLS Program. Read their stories here and if you are a teacher interested in attending AWLS or you know someone who would be a good candidate, please e-mail Bullock@srv.net or call

The variety of learning opportunities at the American Wilderness Leadership School (AWLS) exceeded my expectations. Each day was packed with activities from morning until night.

The facility is located on scenic Granite Creek in Wyoming. I stayed in main lodge where the classroom and dining hall are located. There are also several cabins were the staff and some of the participants were housed. There is even a Tee Pee on site where I camped one night. The accommodations were very comfortable, but what made the facility most appealing were the natural surroundings. There were several trails that were easily accessible for an early morning hike to a waterfall or mountain vista.

The knowledge and vast experience base of the instructors was impressive. They were dedicated to making sure the participants had a good experience. The food was excellent! The wonderful meals were a great complement to the program. We were provided with a lot of materials on environmental education that can be used in our classrooms. I particularly enjoyed the training on outdoor survival skills. My school has purchased a training video and set of survival kits for students and chaperons for our outdoor program. The instructors were very helpful in providing information and resources so we could implement elements of the program in our schools.

I had a great time at AWLS. My favorite activities were rafting and fly fishing on the Snake River. Hiking the trails in the area was also one of my favorite parts. I was surprised at the range of areas we explored during the week. We took several field trips including a day at Grand Teton National Park.

Additional free time built into the schedule to explore the trails around the facility would have been great. I am looking forward to returning to the area with my family to do some additional exploring.

I learned a lot about the variety perspectives on hunting and issues surrounding the management of wildlife from both the instructors and participants. There were some teachers who had very little experience in outdoor settings. They were placed in situations out of their comfort zones, where a great deal of learning occurs.

Idaho Chapter Sponsors Idaho Falls Teacher to

2003 SCI Wildlife Conservation School

"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand. We understand only what we are taught. The reason we teach outdoor education is that we might, by sharing our knowledge, also share our love."

KC Jones, Skyline High School Earth Science Teacher

I knew when I met with KC, he was the right candidate. That quote substantiates it.

To me, that quote summarizes so much of why Safari Club spends so much of its energy and treasure in conservation education. Why we have Sensory Safari’s. Why ignorance and complacency about wildlife conservation is so dangerous a threat to the future of wildlife and to the civility that nature contributes so much toward.

KC was suggested by some of our Idaho Falls members. We met briefly in an Idaho Falls restaurant. I observed with interest several high school-aged youngsters who worked there come up to KC, seek him out to talk and laugh with him as if a friend, which, of course he was: a teacher who had touched their lives in a positive way. I suspected we had the right teacher for the first Idaho Falls candidate the Idaho Chapter of SCI would be sending to the SCI Foundation's American Wildlife Leadership School (AWLS).

I gave KC a general review of the course he would attend and SCI’s purpose for it: to bring junior and senior high school teachers (SCI also includes outdoor writers, agency educators, and others at times) together to learn wildlife management science and techniques. Too often, our teachers are ignorant of the science, history, and economics of wildlife management. They have received incomplete or biased training (or no training at all) and teach more misinformation than facts about wildlife. The nearly 3,000 teachers SCI has sponsored at AWLS have a much better knowledge base and a mountain of course material and teaching ideas after completing the AWLS course. Hopefully they present a more balanced picture of wildlife management and needs than they did before attending the AWLS course.

In our first conversation I found out that KC Jones has a degree in wildlife management. Great! I knew this course would expand that knowledge and re-fire his original interest. I also understood why he was such a good teacher of nature and wildlife systems. KC agreed to attend. The dates were set and our chapter sent in the funds.

I have KC’s journal from his days at the course. It is the story of a journey. From a start as a laid-back observer to the role of a leader among his classmates. Many of them were urban, mid-west, east coast city people who hadn’t ever been in a setting like AWLS and certainly had little or no real preparation for wildlife education on the scale presented by AWLS.

You have to picture the AWLS "campus." It is in the middle of the Gros Ventre Wilderness in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It faces a beautiful 2,000 foot opposing ridge of timber and meadow openings. Granite Creek sings in front of the lodge. A 3,000 foot monolith rises to its east and looms over the site. Moose and deer meander through the lawn every day. The western sky spreads over the scene. All manner of small mammals and birds flit and hop about the premises. It is a wonderful scene, a dramatically beautiful scene even to a westerner. But, imagine you are a teacher from Cleveland, Ohio, never having been out of the Midwest. You fly into Jackson in the dark of night and arrive at AWLS the night before with no clue of the scenery that surrounds you except what you see in the headlights of the AWLS van that picks you up at the Jackson airport.

It has been observed that in the morning, when the unsuspecting flat-lander looks out the window, audible screams or yelps of astonishment are to be heard. People walk onto the lawn and stare at the surroundings as if they had just landed on strange planet. In a way, I guess they have. So begins the AWLS experience. For many, a life changing experience. The students realize this is going to be something of substance. And the curriculum and the instructors don’t disappoint.

This is not an easy, lots of down-time experience. Some days have the students on-task 12 or more hours. The treasure trove of teaching aides and books provided each student plus source material contacts were overwhelming and broad-based in content. KC observed that most of the teachers had never considered there can be too many deer, too many predators, too many anything. They knew nothing about carrying capacity and the long term damage done by overloading carrying capacity for long periods. KC observed the environmental literacy level of many attendees is dangerously limited and these are the folks teaching the kids. Ignorance breeds more ignorance.

"We loaded into vans today and drove to Pinedale, WY. There is a stark contrast between burned and unburned grazing land. At a sagebrush steppe site at 7200 feet we walked through a burned and unburned area. A BLM official talked about issues related to grazing, water, and land management. Many in the group were shocked to see so much public land in one place; shocked even more to find out about the decision-making process concerning public land. There is a clear undeniable need to educate the public, the legislators and the teachers, who ultimately impact all of society."

"Between the three academic stops on the tour today, and the inspirational lunch at the base of Mount Moran, and fly fishing in the Snake River below Jackson, oh my am I tired. How could a person ask for more? How could I be better fed? How could it get better than this? Only one thing could top this. That would be to allow my students the same exposure and inspirational stimuli. Let them overdose on natural experiences designed to familiarize them with nature; the flowers, birds, bugs, rocks, wind and sun. Until they know what is out here, they can never appreciate it."

Imagine how this training impacts a person not from Idaho, not a wildlife management degreed teacher. AWLS changes lives. Some teachers have left angry. Angry because they now knew from the AWLS experience they had been lied to all their lives and teaching those lies to their students. Most leave so charged up to get back to their kids to somehow infuse those young minds with all they had learned while at AWLS.. This is the major battlefield for the truth and for the truth being instilled into the next generation. And SCI is the only sportsmen sponsored organization doing it at this professional level and at this level of investment. There are three sites now. At Granite Creek Wyoming and at a site in Minnesota and one in Maine. We are in a war for their minds, folks. The media and urban influences are instilling the lies and distractions. SCI is instilling the truth.

KC Jones. You are a marvelous representative for teachers everywhere and an advocate for AWLS and SCI to other teachers. Thank you for being such a dedicated teacher.