Changemakers summer Dinosaur trip

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Changemakers Summer Trip to Dinosaur

Escrito en español más abajo. The Changemakers program took our end of the year trip to backpack through the canyons of Dinosaur National Monument. Over the course of four days, we as a group have grown closer than ever. From country roads to crunchy roads, we did it all; some of our personal highlights include… Read more »

Changemakers native pollinators Earth Day

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Changemakers give away native plants for Earth Day

Escrito en español más abajo. Early on Saturday morning, we all Changemakers met up behind the Lafayette Recreation Center to start preparing our booth for the annual Lafayette Earth Day festival. For our booth, we decided that we would inform people passing by of different native plants that they can plant in their own backyards… Read more »

Changemakers Winter Field Day

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A Skeletal Surprise for Changemakers

The Changemakers winter field day featured a skeletal surprise,  quinzhee, avalanche training, and plenty of falls in the snow! Written by Chelsea Tossing. Check out more photos here. Escrito en español más abajo If you’ve ever been to Brainard Lake in the winter, you know how absolutely beautiful it is; endless miles of trails take… Read more »

Changemakers spring trip

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Changemakers 2021: What do you need right now?

Written by Chelsea Tossing (Escrito en español más abajo) When we first began the Changemakers program in the summer of 2020, the world felt as if it had been turned upside down. Students had been out of school for months, and the lockdowns that extended into summer proved even more isolating. As we began thinking… Read more »

Zapata Falls

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Changemakers Spend A Night in the Sand Dunes

  What was your favorite part of the trip? What will you always remember? You’ll get different answers to these questions depending on who you ask. Last week, Cottonwood’s Changemakers spent three days in the San Luis Valley exploring Great Sand Dunes National Park, Zapata Falls, and Earth Knack. As the culmination to a yearlong… Read more »

2021 Base Camp Bash

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Celebrating Changemakers at the 2021 Base Camp Bash

Every year we gather our whole CI community for our annual Base Camp Bash—a night of celebration and stories, fun and fundraising. The theme of this year’s Base Camp Bash was “Changemakers,” but who exactly is a Changemaker? We couldn’t have said it better than Kevin Cano, Lafayette Stewardship Intern and winner of this year’s… Read more »

Changemaker Program Overnight

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Trail Games – A Changemaker Program Trip Report

Trail games are the spontaneous games you play when you have infinite time and imagination and easy rapport with good friends. On CI’s first overnight trip since the pandemic began, the students in our Changemaker Program craved nothing more than being outdoors together. As we wandered up to Solitude Point at Cal-wood, we started playing… Read more »

Changemaker Primitive Skills Day

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Never Underestimate a Changemaker: Primitive Skills Workshop

This past weekend, students from our Changemaker Program got off their screens (finally!) and into the field for a chilly Saturday afternoon of practicing primitive skills. “We’ll be lucky if they make a little smoke,” we told the land managers that had given us permission to teach bow drill fires at Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat…. Read more »

Explore Outside Photo Challenge Calendar

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CI Explore Outside Photo Challenge: January 2021

Ah January—a time to reflect, set intentions, and cave on your New Year’s resolution by January 3rd. Wait, what? If you’ve ever failed at a New Year’s goal, you’re not alone; studies show that nearly 80% of resolutions get dropped by the end of the year. We all know that big sweeping changes are hard… Read more »