Hands On Wildlife Kit, American Wilderness Leadership School teacher education programs, college scholarships, financial support for the National Archery in the Schools, 4-H National Shooting Sports, Boy Scouts of America Venturing Program, The Salvation Army Outdoors, Outdoor Writers of America Youth Writing Contest and grants to SCI Chapters to support community youth programs.
For many years, I have been recruiting educators to attend the American Wilderness Leadership School. Several years ago I became more involved with the promotion, gifting and sales of the Hands On Wildlife (HOW) Kit.   The Kit has evolved into ‘Conservation Education’ using North American Model of Conservation instructional materials, animal pelts, and replicas of skulls, tracks and scat. The Kit size is easily hand-carried by educators using its contents to teach about wildlife management and the positive role of hunting.
Have you or your chapter invested in a HOW Kit or in distributing HOW Kits to educators?   In my opinion, the best bang for the buck is for a chapter or individual to have a loaner Kit.  I try to keep a Kit at home to loan to Boy/Girl Scout leaders, teachers, Park and Rec departments and other interested parties.
If you give a Kit to a teacher how much use does it get?  A single teacher can use the Kit to teach thousands of youth each year.   I use HOW as a recruiting tool for AWLS prospective applicants.  If you can hook an educator on the Kit the party line is “Go to AWLS to learn how to use the Kit to its fullest potential.”  Another carrot to use with potential AWLS applicants is “Go to AWLS and complete a gifting application with the possibility to have your own Kit.”   These strategies worked for me this past year in recruiting 10 educators to the AWLS program.
A Chapter can gift a HOW Kit to educators it sponsors to AWLS.   When an AWLS alumnus is given instructional tools, he/she is more likely to pass on to his/her students what was learned about conservation at AWLS.   Chapters can purchase the HOW Kit for $550 plus $30 shipping from the SCI Foundation Education Department.
Contact Stephanie Gary at [email protected] or (520) 620-1220 — John Floyd, SCI Foundation and member of the Hands On Wildlife Committee