Student Conservation Association - History of The SCA

History of The SCA

In 1955, Elizabeth Titus Putnam of Vassar College wrote her senior thesis, "A Proposed Student Conservation Corps". The idea, modeled after the federal Civilian Conservation Corps program (1933–42), was to take the burden of labor-intensive jobs such as entrance fee collecting or trail work from the National Park Service and shift to the SCC. In 1957, the Student Conservation Program (forerunner to SCA) had two separate programs in Grand Teton National Park and Olympic National Park. In 1964, the Student Conservation Program broke away from the National Park Service and formed the Student Conservation Association. Since then, the organization has grown tremendously and currently places more than 4,000 volunteers annually in public lands and urban green spaces.