BLM AK Youth Opportunity Soil Scientist EIFO FDO

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Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has pledged that the Department of the Interior DOI will provide 100,000 work and training opportunities to young people within our bureaus and through public private partnerships over the next four years. As a high priority goal the BLM Alaska will continue in their efforts to provide work and training opportunities to youth and young adult to gain land management experience by working with land managers on various projects. BLM Alaska has been very successful in providing opportunities throughout the State of Alaska, which educate and inspire the next generation of conservation leaders. The proposed project is to partner with an organization that can provide youths to assist BLM staff in the development of a GIS database of general travel and transportation for the Eastern Interior Field Office and the Fairbanks District Office assist with the inventory and monitoring of soil erosion and compaction along travel routes and conduct soil surveys, and assist with collection of hydrological data on water courses. Benefits to be achieved through collaboration are resource inventory of soil types and composition characteristics and assessing impacts to soil resources of travel routes and other facility development, development of GIS data bases, and collection of hydrological information from disturbed and non-disturbed streams. Additional benefits for the partner organization are hands on field experience under the guidance of an experienced land manager, technical and safety training; expertise in conservation and natural resources, experience in developing public stewardship and satisfaction from accomplishing important work for the conservation of public lands. A Mentor will be assigned to each intern, if needed. This will help ease the transition into a new remote location and workplace, promote the interns professional growth and assist them in gathering the skills necessary for their future job placements. This project will also provide training activities to improve the expertise of all partners. The BLM and the recipient will seek to work collaboratively to identify and implement projects which would appropriately serve the best interests of the people of the United States. The knowledge and experience received from this program will provide the participant with some insight in determining a career path as well as providing much needed experience for future positions.

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