Training outline and objectives

Learning outcomes

Program administration
Volunteers will…

• Understand the expectations for their participation in the Master Naturalist program.
• Know what their advanced training and service opportunities are and how to get them approved.
  
• Successfully keep track of their service hours.

An introduction to conservation
Volunteers will…

• Explain the reasons for conservation: economic, political, aesthetic, scientific, moral.
• Be able to explain the missions of the sponsoring agencies (MDC, MU Extension) and how the Master Naturalist program supports those missions.
• Be able to compare and contrast preservation, restoration and management.

Historical overview of resources and use (Emphasize local stories)
Volunteers will…

• Know that what they see on the landscape today is different than what it was 50, 150, 200 years ago.
• Know how humans have changed natural processes that lead to changed ecosystems (fire, timber harvest, channelization, agriculture, urbanization).
• Be able to explain how we know what was here prior to settlement (Lewis and Clark, other early explorers, survey notes, Steyermark, etc.).
• Be able to explain how exploitation of resources led to conservation as it exists today.

Ecological concepts
Volunteers will be able to...

• Describe processes involved in ecological succession including water cycle and food webs.
• Describe the concepts of limiting factors and carrying capacity and why those are important.
• Define succession.
• Describe what influences biodiversity and why it is important.
• Describe the difference between a habitat and a niche and why it’s important.
• Describe the differences between indigenous, exotic and invasive species and their impacts.

Eco-regions overview
Volunteers will be able to...

• Describe and locate Missouri’s Natural Divisions.
• Describe in detail a natural division in their location.

Systems
Volunteers will be able to...

• List some of the characteristics that define ecosystems.
• Identify two or three characteristics of one ecosystem.
• Describe a current human activity and how it impacts an ecosystem in their location.
• Identify representative plants, animals and natural communities in an ecosystem in their location.

Management concepts
Volunteers will be able to...

• Describe some ways in which fish, forest, wildlife and natural communities are renewable.
• Describe the roles of harvest in managing plant and animal populations.
• Describe the processes of species and/or habitat manipulation as population and community management tools.
• Explain how agencies strive to balance natural resource management and public recreation to the benefit of both.

How to teach
Volunteers will...

• Know where to get information to prepare presentations for the public.
• Feel comfortable giving a presentation or working at an event or fair.
• Be familiar with resource use issues that may come up during a presentation and have some ideas how to handle those situations.

Volunteer draft training topics for 40 hour training (to accomplish the above outcomes)

Program administration

• Policies and procedures
• Risk management
• Program code of ethics
• Expectations for volunteers
• Program roadmap

Introduction to conservation

• Reasons for conservation: economic, political, aesthetic, scientific, moral
• Levels of conservation
• Agency backgrounds – roles, missions, visions, values

Historical overview of resources and use

• Conservation history
• Land use history
• Pre settlement
• Local history
• Natural history
• Natural resource policy

Ecological concepts

• Water cycle
• Energy cycle
• Carrying capacity
• Succession
• Limiting factors

Natural divisions/eco-regions overview
Systems for prairie/grassland, forest, wetland, savanna, stream/lake/pond, glade, urban, agricultural

• What each system is, processes
• Management
• Importance/relative size
• Current human impacts
• Restoration
• System relationships
• For local ecosystems, representative plants, animals and natural communities

Management concepts

• Hunting, fishing, trapping
• Soil conservation
• Water quality
• Watersheds
• Nuisance wildlife
• Invasive exotics
• Enforcement
• Habitat
• Predators
• Use and recreation/people management

How to Teach

• Doing presentations
• Resources available
• What do I do when…
    Dealing with what might hit you