WISCONSIN—Several students with the Blackwell Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center in Laona, Wisconsin, put their newly acquired skills and conservation knowledge to the test during a visit to the East Coast. Their mission? To lending a helping hand reinforcing forest health and recreation opportunities while experiencing projects distinct to the area.

“This was a terrific opportunity for students to be involved in activities that are essential to forest management in places that many of them visited for the first time,” said center Director Annie Schenkoske. “This is an example of the type of useful skills that students acquire here that can be applied in projects here and throughout the United States.”

In Rhode Island, students were instrumental in the pine barren habitat at the Narragansett Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. The research reserve is a partnership program established between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to promote informed management and sound stewardship of coastal resources. For two days, Blackwell students and employees were instrumental in thinning the Pine Barren habitat, which is essential to strengthening the health of the forest and forest species.

At the Forest Service Massabesic Experimental Forest in Maine, the team helped remove hazardous fuels located close to a popular hiking trail and private residences. They cleared around a roadside, a weather station and a helicopter landing area. They cut and bucked dead trees and stacked them for a future pile burn. They also collected tree samples that will be essential to a research project to evaluate local insect communities of wood-inhabiting insects.

The students visited White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, where they cleared wildlife openings that once were apple groves planted by early settlers. Here, they assisted with a 13-acre prescribed fire. They worked with specialists from White Mountain National Forest, State, Private and tribal Forestry, The Nature Conservancy, New Hampshire Army Guard and New Hampshire Division of Forests and Lands.

Their last stop was at the Bartlett Experimental Forest on the White Mountain National Forest, where they cleared snags along a roadside popular for hiking and biking. They spent the last day there opening recreational trails used for skiing and biking.