Kestrel Project

The Kestrel Project is an educational program using flight and ground-based education for school age children and young adults. The Program is designed to inform students about environmental issues from a broad range of perspectives and then show them via flight how such issues personally impact their lives and the world around them upon which they depend.

The Kestrel Project combines round-table style discussions between youth and local experts, with aerial survey and observation. The roundtable forums are organized in collaboration with area teachers and school systems and strive to present all sides of a given environmental issue fairly. Flights, which take place directly after the forum, allow the land to speak for itself. They provide the student with a vital perspective of the interconnectedness of the ecosystem around them and a deeper understanding of the connectivity between local ecosystems and the greater global environment. It is a unique experiential learning opportunity that helps to engender a strong environmental stewardship ethic for all those involved.

Today's students are tomorrow's leaders. But under the influence of current trends and intense marketing, today's youth are bombarded with information and ideas that do very little to influence a young person's sense of personal relationship to or responsibility for the local ecosystems upon which they depend. Likewise, the intrinsic value of our remaining national wild lands and the many benefits they provide our society are commonly underrepresented as part of a young citizen's education.

Perhaps the most important impact of the learning experience with the Kestrel Project is the birds eye view students will experience from their flight over the land. From the air, they can see the beauty of the nearby wilderness, the connectivity of watersheds and how everything is connected as one larger whole. They see first hand the devastating effects of industrial scale mining, clear cutting and other resource extraction and wild land conversion activities. And they feel a sense of responsibility, urgency and empowerment that can last a lifetime.