The california conservation corps watershed stewards program (WSP) will engage 42 corpsmembers in watershed restoration projects throughout california most high need watersheds from the oregon…

The california conservation corps watershed stewards program (WSP) will engage 42 corpsmembers in watershed restoration projects throughout california most high need watersheds from the oregon border to the santa barbara area. The lodi U.S fish and wildlife office (LFWO) will serve as a placement site and host two of these corpsmembers for the following PURPOSES1 corpsmembers will assist LFWO with monitoring and habitat restoration to rehabilitate salmonids like chinook salmon and steelhead trout and delta smelt to viable healthy and historic POPULATIONS2 LFWO will provide opportunities to corpsmembers as up and coming natural resource specialists in immersive hands on professional and educational EXPERIENCES3 WSP will train the corpsmembers to provide watershed education and outreach to high needs communities and schools and engage in volunteer recruitment efforts to increase the capacity and reach of the LFWO AND4 provide high quality information and environmental education to students and the community at large regarding the mission and activities of the LFWO and WSP.activities deliverable and beneficiariestwo WSP corpsmembers will serve their 10 and half month WSP term directly supervised by WSP region II program coordinator and will receive daily oversight and direction from the mentors at the LFWO.corpsmember placed at LFWO will serve fulltime conducting field work consisting of fisheries sampling techniques in estuarine waters of the sacramento and SAN joaquin deltas including midwater trawling kodiak trawling plankton towing beach seining weir sampling acoustic tagging emergence trapping etc. The proper identification of all fish species encountered in sampling is a requirement of this job and thorough fish identification training is included. Lab work includes the removal of coded wire tags from juvenile chinook salmon larval fish identification and sample processing. Office work includes the entry and editing of fisheries data and data summarization. In addition WSP corpsmember will participate in all WSP trainings and events including orientation WAVE and WOW training site visits outreach events and the exit retreat and recognition ceremony. Corpsmembers are evaluated by their mentors three times through a performance review. The expected outcome is the corpsmember will increase their skills and spend at least 85 hours on training and professional development over the course of the project. Corpsmembers in the WSP program have historically reached this goal.each corpsmember will also serve in a lodi area title I or other high need school to educate second to fifth grade students in watershed and salmonid science using WSP wonders of watersheds (WOW) curriculum. The curriculum consists of five to six one hour 80 minute lessons focusing on watershed ecology the water cycle habitat salmonid life cycle salmonid anatomy and water conservation and stewardship. Corpsmembers will measure the knowledge of students using WSP pre and post tests. The expected outcome is that the corpsmember will educate at least 20 second to fifth grade students and students will increase their knowledge of watersheds and salmonids.each corpsmember will complete one watershed awareness volunteer event (WAVE) during their time in the program and are responsible for recruiting training and managing a target of 20 volunteers in the implementation of a hands on watershed restoration project. The expected outcome is that the corpsmember will recruit community volunteers and prepare media sources according to county guidelines regarding safe numbers of volunteers to gather. Corpsmembers in the WSP program have historically recruited 20 or more volunteers at their WAVE. The corpsmember will report data using the WAVE assessment form and will record and count volunteers using WSP volunteer agreement forms.