This week we continued to hammer away on our Community Action Project. On Tuesday, we came up with the following statements that helped us define the problem that we want to address:

1. People are buying globally while thinking locally instead of buying locally and thinking globally.
2. Corporate monopolies in the agriculture industry focus solely on the bottom line and sacrifice human rights and the environment at all costs.
3. People are uneducated about the benefits of buying local and organic.
4. People don’t know that industrially produced foods are bad for you.

On Wednesday, we had another heated Snow Sense quiz competition for the get out of journal free cards. Two teams came down to a sudden death tie and both answered the tiebreaker question correctly. Because we were out of time, both teams were awarded the coveted get out of journal free cards. We then discussed winter survival techniques by breaking up into teams and participating in a winter survival scenario. After lunch we met at Bear Creek Park to discuss how each team would handle the scenario and learned about winter survival priorities and techniques. Later that afternoon, Alex Hearn from Rocky Mountain Rescue joined our class to discuss rescue scenarios. Students participated in a cool teambuilding activity called Lava where the group stood in a circle protected from the lava and each student had to retrieve a ring outside of the circle without touching the lava. In an awesome display of creativity, teamwork, and strategy, the group retrieved all of the rings.

After completing the teambuilding exercise, we walked up into Boulder Mountain Park and Alex presented a rescue scenario for the group to tackle. We pretended that we were 5 miles in the backcountry at approximately 2pm in the afternoon and Rithy (aka T. Money) broke his tibia and fibula. The group had approximately 20 minutes to choose 10 gear items to use during the rescue, come up with an action plan, and initiate that plan in order to rescue T. I was very proud of the teamwork and creativity that everyone displayed. They splinted T.’s leg with a Crazy Creek chair and duct tape and carried him back to the trailhead. Way to go guys!

On Friday, we finally came to a consensus regarding the specific Community Action Project we would address as a class. We decided to create an information packet to educate the public about the positive benefits of buying local and organic and decided to hand out information and talk to people on the streets of Boulder – grassroots style! With only a few weeks remaining in this quarter, we have a lot of work ahead of us. However, our class is full of ambitions and passionate students and I am confident that we can keep our commitment to help make a positive impact in the community.

PS: If you want more information about The Bottle Belt that Alex and Ford were carrying on Wednesday, check out their website!