The Sequoia Environmental Youth Leaders (SEYL) program - formerly known as “Youth Advisory Council” - is a 10-month educational program targeting high school and college students from Porterville and Lindsay Unified School Districts. The SEYL internship provides a hands-on, work-based learning experience by providing members with leadership opportunities throughout Tulare County, both in the classroom and at SRT’s various nature preserves. Over the course of the year, youth leaders are trained in outdoor education topics and ultimately acquire the skills necessary to develop and lead field trips for elementary students from their own communities. In the spring of each year, elementary school students from the Porterville and Lindsay school districts come to SRT's Blue Oak Ranch Preserve, to be lead through these various educational activities by the high school youth leaders.

The Youth Advisory Council is funded for the 2022-2025 school years by the California Natural Resources Agency's Youth Community Access Program. Over the course of these three years, SRT expects to provide hundreds of elementary students access to SRT’s Blue Oak Ranch Preserve annually. Throughout the training and development of field trips, the SEYL members are exposed to various career professionals and stakeholders in environmental and educational fields. By emphasizing that this program is youth-led, SRT hopes to encourage students to take initiative and feel ownership over their own education, while also providing them with great hands-on opportunities to become leaders, educators, and role models for the next generation of students in their own communities!