West Denver Prep Students Venture Into the Chilly Outdoors

In a league all of its own, West Denver Preparatory’s Lake Campus (WDP) has risen to the challenge to meet the needs of Denver’s burgeoning inner-city demographics. The students at WDP are offered an excellent education and are shown that success later in life and getting into college starts as early as middle school.  This spring the Cottonwood Institute is proud to continue their partnership with WDP by leading two overnight camping trips.

The first trip in mid-April turned out to be more of a winter experience than spring.  But with the encouragement of our amazing instructors and WDP veteran teacher, Leigh Garrison, we pushed on.   To cope with the forecasts of snow and rain, we stayed in a cabin at Highlands Camp near Allenspark, Colorado.  In spite of the cold, the group had tremendous energy and we spent the day exploring the area, learning new plants and animals, navigating streams, smelling pine trees, and building survival shelters.  A few times throughout the day we stopped and listened, contemplating the thick clouds that sunk over the mountains.  Students heard, perhaps for the first time in their life, the sound of utter silence… uncluttered by the noise of automobiles, the hum of airplanes, the clatter of television… only stillness.  It is tremendously important for the future leaders of our world to know what this sounds like.  When we woke up in the morning, the ground was covered in snow.  The morning stories of animals were marked clearly with fresh tracks.  We followed coyotes, foxes, deer, elk, squirrels, mice, chipmunks, and prairie dogs as their trails wound through the forest and intertwined.  Just as we packed the last backpack into the van to come back to civilization, the true storm hit and we drove out as thick snowflakes whirled to the ground.

You would think the second trip, held just last weekend, would offer warmer weather than the first. But once again we were greeted with forecasts of rain and snow, and this time, accompanied by Danielle Matthews, a talented math teacher new to WDP, we toughed it out.  No cabins, just the warmth, or lack there-of, in our tents and sleeping bags, and a wood-burning stove.  The night before, our campsite at Calwood had been covered in snow, but the weather held off for most of our trip.  After setting up camp, we learned how to use our eyes differently in the forest, and to expand our senses.    Later in the evening, we sat around a hot stove, told stories, talked about different ways we could survive in the outdoors, and learned that panic is the most dangerous reaction that can happen in the wilderness.  Once it was dark, the group decided to challenge and master their fears with the blind-drum stalk.  The students wandered out into the forest wearing a blindfold, and then made their way back without their eyes by following the sound of a beating drum.  Terrified at first, they gradually learned to use their other senses and stay calm in the darkness.  The next morning, we went to work on our service project stacking recently-cut wood to prevent severe forest fires in the area.  The group formed a human chain and worked for two hours moving log-rounds.  After a weekend full of laughter and good memories, we packed up, reluctantly returning to the city.

And we are not done yet.  Cottonwood Institute will continue its relationship with WDP over the summer months, teaming up with Mission: Wolf for a 4 day, 3 night adventure at a wolf sanctuary near Gardner, CO.  We will also be collaborating with City Wild for a one day rafting excursion down the South Platte River in Denver.  Don’t you wish you went to West Denver Prep?

Click here for a slideshow of the April overnight.  Click here for a slideshow of the May overnight.

Written by Clark Patton. Edited by April Pishna

Easter Eggs and Turkeys – Another Casa de la Esperanza Adventure

What do you see when you think of Easter Weekend?  Is it brightly colored eggs, frilly pink dresses and blue ties, maybe even a spiral cut ham coated with brown sugar?  For a group of boys from Casa de la Esperanza, a Boulder County Housing Community in Longmont, their memories now include an adventure at Heil Valley Ranch outside of Boulder.

The day was spent trotting after turkeys, climbing over rocks, listening to stories, playing team building and leadership games, and learning about survival and nature awareness.  While the boys were thrilled with those activities, the coolest adventure of the day was discovering an actual archeological site chock full of flint chips. After making their own rock paintings to tell their story (using environmentally friendly “paint” that will wash off in the next rain, of course) it was time to head back home.

The only complaint, “We left so quick.” If you want a taste of nature, go on a day hike.  If you want the full course, go camping.  Thanks to our donors, these kids get another adventure this summer, giving them the opportunity to experience nature up close and overnight – we get to go camping!

So, until next time, remember Easter eggs and spiral cut ham, but also remember the turkeys, the rocks, and all the adventures that nature provides.

Click here for a slideshow of the day’s adventures!

 

 

Earth Task Force and the Science Adventure Program Join Forces

“Ask Questions, Make Mistakes, and Get Dirty!”

In the second half of the 2011-12 school year the Earth Task Force (ETF), sponsored by the Cottonwood Institute, teamed up with the Science Adventure Program (SAP) for games, mentoring, and exploration.

SAP is an after school program for elementary school students, which inspires student to: “Ask questions, make mistakes, and get dirty!” The idea to team up with a younger group of students grew out of the ETF Fall retreat when ETFers expressed interest in tiered learning and mentoring, in order to connect more with their world. This year the multi-generational group of students went on three different adventures together to explore their community.

In February they went to the C.U. Museum of Natural History for an afternoon of fun, games, and education. After a name game outside they headed into the museum to explore dinosaurs, pine beetles, smog, pollinators and more.

Both the ETF and SAP members shared ages, favorite projects, and why they love nature. Aaron Fox (ETF alumni) showed off his famous super hero costume and explained how ETF teaches students about the importance of the environment while being fun and silly. All of the SAP members shared inspiring reasons why they love nature and told the ETF about the time they saw their teacher, Ms. Muskrat’s, python eat a whole rat! Both the high school students and the elementary students were nervous to meet each other. The nerves didn’t last long though…

In March, ETF and SAP met up on SAP’s home turf near their elementary school. SAP students challenged the ETF to a nature scavenger hunt and ETF challenged SAP to clean up the creek as they walked along. At the end of the outdoor exploration, the students returned to SAP headquarters to meet Freddy Mercury, the Ball Python, the backyard hens, and more.

In April, ETF and SAP celebrated spring with a hula-hooping lesson on New Vista High School’s front lawn. Any tired teachers leaving school at the end of that day had their spirits lifted by multi-generational hula-hooping tricks!

ETF plans to continue their relationship with SAP into next year, expanding on this great new program with new mentoring ideas, shared service projects, and more.

Learn more about the Science Adventure Program here: http://www.scienceadventureprogram.com/
Written by Remy Barrows-O’Neil and Paige Doughty

2012 Base Camp Bash Was A Rockin’ Success!

The Cottonwood Institute’s 2012 Base Camp Bash was a rockin’ success. On Saturday, April 28th, 2012, Artwork Network was transformed from an art gallery into a vibrant base camp packed with outdoor enthusiasts who gathered to help raise money for the Cottonwood Institute’s 2012 programs to connect underserved kids to the outdoors and empower them to tackle local environmental issues.

Thanks to our patrons, sponsors, and attendees, we were able to raise over $40,000 to help support our projects with West Denver Preparatory Charter School, Casa de la Esperanza, New Vista High School, Lakewood High School, and Operation: Military Kids.

Snooze tantalized our taste buds with their delicious food and s’mores pancakes, Wynkoop Brewing Company, Mondo Vino, and Leopold Bros. cleansed our palates with their beer, wine, and local spirits, while The Cottonwood Trio set the tone for the night with their rocking’ tunes as everyone was whipped into a bidding frenzy for our amazing auction.

In addition to the Bash, we had a fabulous Patron Party on Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 for our patrons and sponsors at the private home of Stephen and Genie Waters. The Acker Jazztet played live Dixieland jazz, while we sipped on southern cocktails from Steuben’s and devoured Po-Boys, Jambalaya, and Shrimp Maison.

But it all started with the Kick Off Party on Friday, March 30th, 2012 when 5280 Magazine and Wynkoop Brewing Company hosted a fun party to kick off Earth Month and unveil their limited-edition Cottonwood Organic White beer to benefit the Cottonwood Institute and our programs.

We could not have pulled everything off without the amazing support of our donors, patrons, and sponsors, including: 5280 Magazine, Wynkoop Brewing Company, Snooze, the Taddonio Family Foundation, Colorado Business Bank, Messner & Reeves, St. Charles Capital, Climax Molybdenum, CASI, Artwork Network, and Ownership Transfer Planning, Inc.

If you were not able to attend and still want to help support our programs, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today, by Clicking Here.

To check out a slide show of all three events, Click Here.

Top 5 Reasons To Buy Your Tickets To The Bash Today!

We hope you are planning to join us for the 7th Annual Base Camp Bash on Saturday, April 28th, 2012 from 7 – 10pm at Artwork Network in Denver.

If you don’t already have your tickets, here are 5 reasons to buy your tickets today!

5. Ticket Prices Increase This Saturday! We can only sell 200 tickets and once they are gone they are gone! Sorry, no scalping tickets please;) Tickets are $50 per person in advance and increase to $60 per person on April 14th. Patron/sponsor levels still available, so Buy Now!

4. The Food: We will feature amazing food from Snooze, including breakfast burritos, breakfast sandwiches, grilled cheese and tomato soup dunkers, and s’mores pancakes for dessert – Yum!

3. The Drinks: Cottonwood Organic White beer from Wynkoop, wine donated by the Taddonio Family Foundation, and local spirits from Leopold Bros.

2. The Auction: Adventurous trips, outdoor gear, and more. Bid Now!

1. Proceeds Help Connect Kids To The Outdoors: Enough said, but to learn more about our award-winning environmental education and service-learning programs, Click Here.

MANY THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

$5,000+ Level Sponsors

$2,500 Level Sponsors:

$1,000 Level Sponsors:

$500 Level Sponsors:

Takeaways From The 2nd Annual Johnson & Wales Environmental Leadership Summit

On Friday, March 16, 2012, 13 motivated Johnson & Wales Environmental Leadership Academy students and staff packed Fluid Meeting Spaces in Denver to learn more about environmental issues and what they can do to address them. The Cottonwood Institute put together an exciting day of activities and guest speakers to highlight examples of people and organizations that are truly changing the world. Here are a few takeaways from the day:

In the morning, Ford Church spoke about how he started the Cottonwood Institute, we walked through an interactive process highlighting how their students tackle local environmental issues, and learned about the Cycle of Cynicism and the Cycle of Hope. After showing Derek Siver’s video called How To Start A Movement, a big takeaway was that you don’t always have to be a leader to change the world – the first follower is critical to starting any movement.

We showed a video called the Story of Stuff and learned more about our waste cycle, including extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal and what we can do to help. We were shocked to learn that 99% of the things we buy from stores end up in a landfill within six months. Click Here for 10 little and big things you can do to address this problem.

Next, we heard from Jeff Aitken, Owner of Fluid Coffee Bar. He shared the core values of Fluid Coffee Bar and how they make decisions through a triple bottom line lens. If opportunities are not good for profit, planet, and people, they get creative about how they can partner with other folks to solve the problem or table the idea.

JD Prater from Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) gave an incredibly powerful, interactive presentation about climate change, including examples of ways that people all over the world are responding to this crisis. The big takeaway from JD’s presentation was to Do One Thing (DOT).

Adam Schlegel, the Co-Founder of Snooze A.M. Eatery, hosted an amazing lunch for us and told us more about how he and his brother launched their wildly popular breakfast joint. A big takeaway from Adam’s presentation was to start small and make environmental initiatives fun. Most restaurants do not recycle, so Snooze started small by starting a recycling program. Then they added composting and now divert close to 90% of their waste stream!

Finally, we wrapped up the day with John-Paul Maxfield, Founder of Waste Farmers. Waste Farmers is a next-generation, sustainable agricultural company focused on helping humanity meet current and future food demands while decreasing agriculture’s environmental footprint. Waste Farmers is an excellent example of a for-profit, socially conscious venture that is a true leader in the sustainable agriculture movement.

A special thanks goes out to Johnson & Wales and all of our dynamic speakers who volunteered their time to inspire us to continue to come up with creative solutions to our most pressing environmental problems.

CAP Explores The Impact of Population Growth

This quarter CAP students at New Vista High School in Boulder, CO explored the environmental impact of population growth. They researched how overpopulation is affecting Boulder County and came across the following topics: Open Space and Mountain Parks trail usage, food production, water use and treatment facilities, waste management, family planning and population density.

The class created funny characters to discuss these topics in skits, helping students understand the possible severity of this issue.  It was a difficult topic to fully grasp and contain in a six week project, but they worked hard and came away with an increased awareness and a desire to delve deeper.

CAP students not only gained an understanding of the overpopulation issue, they also learned more about nature awareness, social change, and interpersonal skills. But don’t let us tell you about that, let the students speak for themselves…

Earth Task Force Shows Off! (In a good way)

On February 27th, 2012, attendees of the Green Schools National Conference came to visit New Vista High School (NVHS) and the Earth Task Force (ETF) got a chance to show off in a good way. About 50 people from all over the nation participated in the tour. The ETF visit was part of a larger tour of Boulder Valley School District’s sustainability efforts, but the organizers of the tour specifically asked to visit the Earth Task Force!

The work ETF has done at NVHS is significant because the story of their building is the story of many schools across the country. The NVHS school building is old, inefficient, and an energy hog! There’s little money, lots of issues, an old boiler, but lots of enthusiasm. The tour of NVHS, designed and run by students in the ETF, highlighted changes schools can make without large-scale capital improvement. The tour consisted of 5 stations that highlighted the ETF’s fundraising and grassroots efforts: solar panels, low-flow toilets, the school
garden, vending machine misers, and the student-run compost.

At each station, ETF members talked about the projects and then took questions
from attendees. At the solar panel display, people on the tour furiously scribbled
down the names of various energy contests. At the garden station, tour members
read the colorful signs from about the space, by the compost they oohed and aahed! In between stations, ETF members leading the tours pointed out stickers on light switches around the school that say “Turn Me Off. How would you feel if someone turned you on and left?” As one attendee put it, “that might not go over so well at an elementary school.”

The Earth Task Force received lots of positive feedback about the tour attendees
at the larger conference in Denver called it “The highlight of the week.”

Written by Seth Blum, student reporter, edited by Paige Doughty.

The Earth Task Force (ETF) is a Cottonwood Institute-supported program at New Vista High School in Boulder, CO designed to give students an opportunity to take the lead to implement sustainability initiatives at their school.

Together We Can Change the World!

Earth Task Force and Cottonwood Institute Present at National Green Schools Conference

The Earth Task Force (ETF), the environmental club at New Vista High School in Boulder, sponsored by the Cottonwood Institute (CI), took part in a whirlwind of events, workshops and speeches at the National Green Schools Conference in Denver February 27th-29th. A tremendous amount of environmental sustainability topics were covered throughout the conference including the Earth Task Force story and vision presented by our very own ETF members in a breakout workshop. They also listened to nationally-renowned keynote speakers, participated in a student summit, and heard stories of other like-minded organizations and schools; not to mention the talking robot named Mrfy, made out of recycled and reused materials!

On the first day, members of the ETF participated in a student summit; connecting students from around the country who are committed to addressing environmental issues within their schools and communities. Each ETF member went to a breakout session that covered different environmental sustainability topics. After having fantastic brainstorming meetings, all the groups at the student summit heard Alec Loorz, one of the leading young voices in the US on the issue of climate change, speak about the global issues that are happening due to climate change. He spoke eloquently about his own personal story of becoming a climate change activist at the age of 12.

On Tuesday, ETF members returned to Denver to partake in the many different breakout sessions and events. They listened to inspiring tales of positive social and environmental change from a great keynote speaker and had a delicious and eye-opening experience during lunch. The lunch, put on by the Boulder Valley School District’s Director of Food Services, Ann Cooper, showcased how unhealthy the average school lunch is; did you know pizza is considered a vegetable! After participating in more afternoon breakout sessions, ETF members went home to prepare for their big presentation.

On the final day of the conference ETF members, mentors, and the Cottonwood Institute Adventure Coordinator presented on CI’s successes at New Vista High School.  All were nervous standing in their silly superhero costumes amidst the fancy digs of the Hyatt lobby, but the team gathered their supplies and took a collective deep breath. The presentation involved interactive activities to simulate the incredible experiences students and adults have during CI’s programs, as well as telling the story of success through the individual perspectives and experiences of those working with ETF and the Community Adventure Program (CAP), another CI sponsored class held at New Vista where students connect to the outdoors.

As the session wrapped up, the Green Schools Conference Team felt they had accomplished their goal of spreading CI’s vision and the ETF’s mission to others involved in environmental sustainability. The conference left attendees inspired and reinvigorated to continue to do what we do best: saving the planet in fun, creative ways!

Written by ETF intern, Aaron Fox

Edited by Paige Doughty, ETF mentor

Click here for a slideshow of the whirlwind of activities!

Hope and Adventure at Casa de la Esperanza

Six weeks ago a group of boys and girls from Casa de la Esperanza gathered together in nervous anticipation for the first ever Casa CAP program.

Casa de la Esperanza (House of Hope) is a residential community in Longmont dedicated to helping agricultural workers. The learning resource center at Casa provides educational and recreational services to its residents, including an onsite after-school program and academic center.  Cottonwood Institute has teamed up with Casa to offer a mini version of our core academic program, The Community Adventure Program (CAP). CAP teaches students essential outdoor and wilderness survival skills necessary to comfortably and competently explore the outdoors, while providing them with the tools and resources to tackle important environmental issues affecting their communities in order to help change the world. We put these two amazing programs together to form Casa CAP.

For the next five weeks, Casa students spent their Wednesday evenings learning about the importance of community, the wonders of nature, and how to survive in the wilderness.  They became leaders while understanding the importance of being part of a team.  They played outside, made fires, roasted marshmallows, created educational posters, helped an injured bird, learned about gardening and seeds, and made  bird-feeders. Most importantly, though, they learned that they have the power to create change.

Casa CAP consisted of many smiles and loud laughter, crayons and paper everywhere, popcorn and marshmallows galore, pine-cones and tiny little seeds, and even one gigantic parachute.  It all culminated into an action project benefiting the community and its winged friends.  The students worked hard creating pine-cone bird feeders giving the birds a safe place to eat and play, while giving Casa residents the beauty of bird-song.  It was a flurry of activities in a short period of time that resulted in building a stronger community and an even stronger sense of purpose.  It only takes a moment!

A huge shout-out to our instructors, Eric and Deb, for their ingenuity, their flexibility, and most of all, their ability to inspire! We also could not have offered this program without funding from the Brett Family Foundation and the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County.

And even more thanks to the entire Casa de la Esperanza community.  You are all a grand example of true community spirit.  Thanks so much for your support and we wish you continuous hope and adventure!

Until next time, relive the smiles and laughter by clicking here for a slideshow of the program’s activities.