DOINews: BLM-New Mexico: Public Land in North Texas Serves as Outdoor Classroom for Local High School Students

As part of the Bureau of Land Management's “Hands on the Land” youth initiative, the BLM Amarillo Field Office hosts an “outdoor classroom” for local high school students on the Cross Bar Ranch. (Clockwise from top: Cross Bar Ranch in Amarillo, Texas; students learning how to use radio telemetry to track animals for research; and BLM natural resource specialist Adrian Escobar pointing out features of the ranch to students.)

As part of the BLM's “Hands on the Land” youth initiative, the BLM Amarillo Field Office recently hosted an outdoor classroom for local high school students on the Cross Bar Ranch.

The Cross Bar is a 12,000-acre area of public land near Amarillo, Texas, managed by the BLM for its ecological and recreational values. Students spent much of the past school year learning about native plant and animal species in North Texas. The Cross Bar field trip was designed to reinforce those lessons and highlight the conservation challenges associated with managing natural resources. They spent the day engaged in various hands-on learning activities about habitats, behavior, physiology and more.

BLM natural resources specialist Adrian Escobar, who manages the Cross Bar, said, “It's imperative that we educate and excite young people about the importance and value of our public lands. They will be the ones who inherit our stewardship responsibility going forward.”

The recent outing was a joint project with Caprock High School. Key partners supporting the project included West Texas A&M University, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Parks Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

By: BLM-New Mexico

May 29, 2014