CES YES (Cooperative Extension Supports Youth Environmental Stewardship) is a national coordination effort that began in the mid 1980's as a collaboration between the US Fish and Wildlife Service (US FWS) and US Department of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service (CSREE) to fund and coordinate regional volunteer leader training on wildlife and natural resources education. A decade later, new emphases on watersheds, biodiversity, ecosystem management and service-learning strategies pointed to the need to improve knowledge and skills of youth leaders.

The 1999-2000 CES YES project provided an opportunity to analyze and learn from the experiences of existing, successful CSREES networks and the previous collaboration between CSREES and US FWS. Our goal was to find ways to link resources of several federal agencies in reaching common natural resource education goals, especially those related to biodiversity and ecosystem management education. A resource notebook, presentations by Cooperative Extension and agency professionals, and team strategic planning sessions were used to identify high priority issues for future work of the CES YES Design Teamand CES YES Partners.

Strategic Goals:

• Identify, develop and support partnership models that help meet environmental education needs of Extension, educators, leaders and youth.
  
• Improve access to quality education resources
  
• Improve access to local natural resources expertise

A new CES YES initiative, Building Capacity of Youth and Youth Leaders, began in August, 2000. Our goal was to develop a website/self-training module as well as other resources for extension and volunteer leaders.