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Tribal Lands Program and Oglala Lakota College

(National Wildlife Federation)

By: Alexis Bonogofsky;  photo: copyright 2008, Alexis Bonogofsky

For the second year, NWF's Tribal Lands Conservation Program has partnered with Oglala Lakota College on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to host tribal high school students in a day of learning about career opportunities in agriculture and natural resources.

Speakers & presenters, which included staff from NWF's Tribal Lands program, covered topics ranging from agricultural & environmental careers, climate change, renewable energy & cultural views of water. After a morning of inside activities, the students went to LaCreek National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern South Dakota to get some time outside to observe the wildlife.

The goal of this event is to expose students to careers and job opportunities that they will be able to do on the reservation.

Students took a tour of the Refuge which includes 16,410 acres of native sandhills, sub-irrigated meadows, impounded fresh water marshes, and tall and mixed grass prairie uplands.
The refuge serves as an important staging area for migrating Canada geese, other waterfowl, sandhill cranes, shorebirds, and neotropical migrants.

Students saw the high plains trumpeter swan, canadian geese and a variety of raptors.