The state of Wyoming has announced a new program to bring the love of the outdoors, wildlife and conservation to classrooms across the state.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the Department of Education, along with partners, released their plans to eventually incorporate outdoors education to all of the state’s 23 counties. They plan to introduce conservation through a program to help students raise fish for stocking and bring an archery program and hunter’s safety courses to students beginning in the fifth grade.

The announcement Monday morning at a Casper press conference “solidifies outdoor education in Wyoming,” said Director of the Game and Fish Department, Brian Nesvik.

“It’s one of the most important things, at least from my perspective, that we can do to ensure our future generations care like we do,” he said.

The department and private donors, including the WYldlife Fund and Trout Unlimited, are covering the cost of implementing the programs, including equipment for the conservation experiments and archery classes and the cost of certifying public school teachers to join the 350 state-wide volunteers who teach hunter safety.

The fisheries department will be distributing kits to an initial 20 schools to raise trout from eggs cultivated at hatcheries. The students will get to watch them hatch and raise the trout to be fingerlings before deciding their releases.

“Our hope is to be able to replicate this [program] across all 23 counties and the entire state,” Nesvik said.

They will also reengage with the National Archery in the Schools Program. It promotes instruction in international-style target archery as part of in-school curriculum, to improve educational performance and participation in the shooting sports among students through grade 12.

At the moment, the schools have not been formally selected, according to Game and Fish spokesperson Breanna Ball. However, many schools in the Cody Region, including Powell Middle School, participate in hunter education either through after school programs or through actual curriculum.

During a budget crisis about a dozen years ago, the department backed away from many of its educational programs in an attempt to cut 10% from their budget, Nesvik said. Now the department has a better financial footing, allowing it to expand its educational opportunities.

“With a lot of these programs, there are skills that kids will learn that will help them with other parts of their education,” Nesvik said, later adding, “What better place for students to be able to have these opportunities than when they go to school.”

Megan Degenfelder, superintendent of Public Instruction in Wyoming, was fortunate to come from a family that fostered hunting and fishing from a young age and credits that experience for life lessons learned.

“I found a lifelong hobby in these activities, but I learned life lessons in safety, self sufficiency, personal and responsibility. I learned grace and failure,” she said. “And I discovered the positive impact that being outside had on my mental health as well as great respect for the greater ecosystem and environment around me.”

But these opportunities, this exposure, are not always the norm, she said.

“[The exposure] should be accessible for all children, no matter what family they come from, their socioeconomic status, what neighborhood ethnicity, or whether they’re boys or girls,” she said. “Not only are these fun and exciting activities, but they also, through partnership between Game and Fish and the Department of Education, align to our state standards.”

Gov. Mark Gordon also spoke, reiterating the importance of outdoors education in the classroom during the outdoor presentation staged in front of one of the department’s large and colorful stocking trucks.

“Research has shown that if kids are outdoors, they build more synapses, they have more of an ability to solve problems and they really learn a lot about relying on themselves,” Gordon said.

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said he will defend the program on a national level. He said programs like Archery in the Schools and Hunter Safety have been targeted by the Biden administration. Hunter Safety is not in danger in Powell, because the district does not use federal dollars to provide the program, Park County School District 1 Superintendent Jay Curtis said last month.