POSTER PRESENTER TITLE: Learning and practicing wetland restoration: Lessons from the Land Restoration School ABSTRACT: Our Rationale: The restoration of degraded habitats is critical to the Earth’s health. Ecological restoration is a societal need, a generational obligation and a viable career path. There is first-person responsibility for the challenges we face, and the opportunity to launch careers and expand the community of effective professionals. But not always through traditional pathways. Our Approach: Founded in 2021, the Land Restoration School seeks participants from varied experiences who can then create new ways to approach this work and to work within community. Pathways toward these careers are varied. LRS creates an immersive alternative; a paid, collaborative, transformative experience, teaching the principles, practice and planning of ecological restoration. Forty days over eleven weeks blends classroom and fieldwork. A mix of guest faculty from universities, scientists and practitioners work to touch and connect all the topics; to break down all the silos. Our Findings: Elements found to be effective include: (1) embedding Wisconsin Master Naturalist certification; (2) provide pay for participants in order to enable career pivots; (3) ongoing professional mentoring relationships with alumni including joint project work; (4) teaching field methods fills a gap; (5) multifaceted learning tools like Timed Meander surveys work beautifully; (6) the importance of distinguishing restoration planning and implementation as a viable life-long career. Cohort and faculty assessments guide refinements, and as we look to the future, we add wetland delineation, and continue to help structure the gig framework quite common among consulting professionals doing this work. BIO: Nancy Aten is a Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner (CERP), licensed landscape architect and principal of Landscapes of Place, offering ecological restoration services. This is her fifth year as director of the Land Restoration School and an instructor. Additionally, she has taught college courses and field courses in environmental literacy and native plant communities.