Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was joined by Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett and several hundred schoolchildren taking part in a youth fishing event on the National Mall today where he signed a Secretarial Order establishing an Office of Youth in Natural Resources at the Department of the Interior.

The Office of Youth in Natural Resources will coordinate present and future youth initiatives, the signature program of which will be a 21st Century Youth Conservation Corps. The corps will be modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps that provided 3 million men with jobs in the 1930s. By comparison, the 21st Century Youth Conservation Corps will include women as well as men and strive for greater diversity.