Endangered Wolves and Animal Tracking This spring, we will facilitate our Endangered Wolves and Animal Tracking Program to students from Littleton Academy, Logan School, Colorado Academy, and STRIVE Preparatory Charter Schools. As part of the program, students will camp out for nearly a week at Mission:Wolf, a wolf refuge located in south central Colorado, to… Read more »
2013 marked the 10th year Cottonwood Institute (CI) has been teaching at New Vista High School! That’s 10 years of exploring, adventuring, playing, and taking action in the Boulder community. Back in the summer of 2003, Ford Church, CI’s founder and executive director, approached New Vista High School about implementing the Community Adventure Program (CAP),… Read more »
Within the first couple weeks of their Cottonwood Institute Mini-CAP class, students at STRIVE Prep Excel decided they were frustrated with the closed system of food in their community. They saw heaps of wasted food and food scraps and started to cultivate a passion and motivation to tackle this issue. Their first step was to… Read more »
As we reflect back on the Cottonwood Institute programs we delivered this year we are incredibly proud of our students who really pushed themselves, stepped out of their comfort zones, explored the outdoors, and tackled some impressive Action Projects in 2013. By the numbers: This year we served 545 students (almost 100 more than 2012),… Read more »
This is a message from the Fall 2013 Community Adventure Program (CAP) located out of New Vista High School in Boulder, Colorado! The Fall 2013 CAP class is striving to better their community through focused environmental practices and ethics. By winterizing New Vista High School, they hope to set an example that will spread value, attention,… Read more »
We’ve had an exciting quarter in CAP so far, filled with hikes, camping, and guest speakers. During the first two weeks of the quarter, we spent many classes navigating miles of trails that traverse the hills just minutes from New Vista High School at Boulder Mountain Park. While learning ecology, minimum impact hiking, and sensory… Read more »
Are you a Cottonwood alumnus? We’d love to hear from you! What are you up to? Email Us! We recently had the opportunity to reconnect with Brian Fauver, a Cottonwood Institute alumnus. Even as he enters a graduate degree program, he continues to use the problem-solving, critical thinking, and leadership skills he gained through CAP…. Read more »
Eight months ago, Cottonwood Institute embarked on a new journey, Mini CAP, with a group of sophomores from FAST Tracks, a dropout prevention program at Lakewood High School. Mini CAP is a spin off of our core curriculum at New Vista High School in Boulder, the Community Adventure Program. We took our CAP curriculum and… Read more »
CAP students were quite busy this quarter. Before their first overnight they learned about camp setup, packing their bags, proper camp nutrition, and basic outdoor overnight essentials. Most of them already had a great deal of camping experience for high schoolers. Or so they said, as they arrived for the overnight with overstuffed backpacks –… Read more »
On September 8th, 2011, the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) visited New Vista High School (NVHS) for a very special annual treat. Amy Atkins, a senior educator for ACE, with the help of the Earth Task Force (ETF), presented an interactive video with a mission to educate and inspire students to battle climate change. … Read more »
