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Top 5 Ways To Help The Cottonwood Institute Thrive!

As the end of the year approaches and you decide what charities to support this year, we hope you will consider the Cottonwood Institute. We accomplished amazing results in 2008 and we could not have done it without the generous support of individuals like you! In these challenging economic times, we wanted to offer the… Read more »

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Alumni Spotlight: Chelsea Weiskerger

What do Cottonwood Institute students go on to do later in life? What are these folks doing today to feed their passion for the outdoors and the environment? Well, over the past few weeks I have been getting back in touch with Cottonwood Institute Alumni to see what they are up to. The first alumnus… Read more »

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The New and Improved Cottonwood Institute Website!

After many long hours and a lot of hard work, the Cottonwood Institute is excited to announce the launching of its new website!  In addition to being much easier to navigate, the site offers a variety of new features and course listings that we can’t wait to share with you. Under the Courses Section of… Read more »

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Mustache Madness!

Ford Church, Founder and Executive Director of the Cottonwood Institute, is an amazing man who sadly does not have the ability to grow facial hair. But this October, despite the odds, Ford will be attempting to grow a mustache! Why would he want to do such a silly thing you ask? Well, for Mustache4Cash of… Read more »

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The Story of Stuff

Have you ever looked around your house and thought to yourself, "Man! I have so much junk!" Why do we have so much useless stuff? And where does all this stuff come from and go after we throw it away? These are the questions that Annie Leonard explores in her short video, "The Story of… Read more »

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Two New Community Adventure Program Instructors

The Cottonwood Institute is proud to welcome two amazing young woman onto our staff as instructors for the Community Adventure Program. Paige Doughty will be instructing at New Vista High School in Boulder, CO and Leslie Douglass will be instructing at P.S.1. Charter School and Manual High School in Denver and will teach camping and… Read more »

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Solar Cooking

Today our friend Patty with SolChef came to teach us about solar cooking. We had no idea we could cook just about anything using the energy from the sun! First Patty explained to us how the ovens work. Next she showed us the various types and how you can bake in some and fry in… Read more »

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Tent Competition

Our overnight is coming up in just a few weekends so we thought we’d have a little tent competition: Boys vs. Girls. With a little teamwork, and lots of confused onlookers from Speer Blvd. our tents were complete and ready to be used! I think we are ready for the mountains!

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Denver Zoo Teens Join The Cottonwood Institute This Summer

Every year a group of dedicated high school students choose to spend their free time volunteering at our local Denver Zoo. They get to lend a hand in every department of the zoo, including preparing food for the animals and completing any odd jobs that need to be attended to. But this summer, these students… Read more »

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Nature Sculptures

Today, students at PS1 learned about nature sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy is an innovative artist who uses only natural materials, such as flowers, icicles, rocks, mud, leaves, pinecones, and snow. After viewing several of Goldsworthy’s pieces, we ventured down to the Cherry Creek River to create our own! D’Razhane, Kenia, and Zach formed their sculpture… Read more »