Thanks to our virtual host and friend Jeffrey Kinsey from The Logos Group, Cottonwood Institute is honored to be a beneficiary of the Chai for Charity virtual event on Thursday, November 12, 2020. Chai for Charity connects donors to nonprofits in their community by contributing not just financial support, but also time and talent to… Read more »
Although the 2020-21 school year is shaping up to be very different from any other in Cottonwood Institute’s history, it has presented us with an opportunity to work collaboratively with other organizations and reach students in new ways. One of these new programs, which launched in September, is our Lafayette Youth Stewardship Internship. Ten high school… Read more »
At Cottonwood Institute, we’ve got reasons to love every time of year. Winter means plenty of snow for building quinzhees, spring is time for projects in the garden (or more quinzhees if the snow decides to stick around), and summer brings us down to Westcliffe for adventures at Mission: Wolf. But our favorite time of… Read more »
After three years of leading CAP, DirtWorks, and so much more at Boulder’s New Vista High School (NVHS), CI Instructor Amy Atkins will be moving on and pursuing new adventures this fall. We were sad to learn she will no longer be teaching CAP, but are equally glad to say that Amy is still working… Read more »
“Pivot and adjust” has been our mantra here at Cottonwood Institute (CI) for the last few months! From figuring out how to interact with our students virtually, and shifting our programs online to coming up with creative ways to hold our events, we have been busy adjusting to the current conditions and finding ways to… Read more »
Our next staff spotlight features Program Manager Andrew Miller! After guiding backpacking and paddling programs in the Bay Area, Andrew took a detour to work in the entertainment industry before returning to environmental education with Cottonwood Institute in 2019. As CI’s Program Manager, he’s responsible for many of the logistics behind our field programs, from… Read more »
Cottonwood Institute has always promoted a life of learning, loving, and living nature. This means disconnecting from our ever-connected devices and reconnecting to the natural world through all of our senses. We encourage our students to observe animal behaviors, to listen to whispers of the wind through the trees, to feel the texture of the… Read more »
Hannah Melomo joined the Cottonwood Institute team as a Field Instructor this spring, and has already proven herself to be a multi-talented graphic designer and curriculum developer in the creation of our Explore Outside Handbook and summer programs! If it was designed by CI and it looks amazing, Hannah probably had something to do with… Read more »
This year, our lives changed drastically. We could have never predicted that 2020 would be the year where outdoor education was taught through a screen, where we’d be more likely to see our friends through a video app than in person. With every new challenge, however, we are given an opportunity to use our… Read more »
Next up in our Staff Profile series is Field Instructor Chelsea Tossing! Chelsea is one of our new instructors in 2020, and while COVID-19 has put the brakes on her first trip season, she has already become a big asset to the CI team by helping to create the Explore Outside Handbook that supports our… Read more »
