Creating Leadership for the Environment

Worried about global warming, habitat shrinkage, air and water pollution? Feel helpless to do very much about those problems?

Become an environmental leader! An environmentally themed Kodiak course gives Venturers environmental education AND the leadership skills to address the problems we face in caring for the earth.

"Kodiak" courses are leadership courses which introduce five skills, called "commissions." They are taught in the outdoors over at least six days, (which may be broken up into two 3-day blocks, no more than two weeks apart.) The six days of fun and inspiration are paired with other activities.

In environmentally themed Kodiaks, those other activities may include:
    •    a trek through several habitats to meet the requirements of the Ranger elective in Plants and Wildlife
    •    sampling a variety of what can be studied in various habitats, from SCUBA dives to do reef surveys to bird counts of a forest's canopy
    •    an environmental service project (which might count towards the Hornaday Award)
    •    sifting through the silt at the bottom of a river, looking for insect larvae, and becoming certified as an Adopt-a-Stream monitor
    •    "rescuing" and replanting endangered plants just ahead of the construction bulldozer

How to Find an Environmentally Themed Kodiak Course:
    •    Organize your own course. Kodiak courses can be run at the Crew level, or by a District or Council. Your Council probably has a point person or committee to assist groups in organizing Kodiak courses, and you can find out who those persons are by talking with your Council Venturing leaders. (If not, volunteer to start that committee!)
    •    Contact your Area President to see which Councils in your Area have been asked to serve as the "hubs" for environmental Kodiaks.
    •    Check the SR Kodiak website to see if there is going to be an environmentally themed Kodiak near you. (http://kodiak-bsa.org/dates.html)
    •    Contact the task force co-chairs for the Creating Leadership for the Environment Project (see the "VOA Commitees" page of this website.)

Please keep the Task Force informed on your Kodiak course and its development. Share your stories with us on the Facebook group, and in the newsletter. What you do will inspire other Crews and Councils to follow suit!