Issue: The Community Adventure Program (CAP) is a unique course that the Cottonwood Institute has implemented into local middle and high schools. Through this program students learn about outdoor awareness and environmental sustainability. They are also provided with the opportunity to make real change in their communities by addressing a local environmental issue. firths quarter at New Vista High School in Boulder, CAP students decided to address the issue of individualized transportation in cars.
Plan: To begin, the students sat down to brainstorm what form they wanted their action project to take. After many great ideas were passed around they decided to break up into small groups to address three alternative transportation options: Biking, carpooling and bus/education.
“I learned many things in this class that I will probably never forget. I truly believe we made an impact on the transportation in Boulder. All it takes is a couple of small actions to save the earth, so get out there and make a change!” ~Patrick Hopewell
Impact: The students took it into their hands to organize a bike/walk to school day which turned out to be agreat success! One hundred and twenty students and teachers participated, and the morning of October 8th, 2008 found the New Vista bike rack completely packed! The students created a colorful carpool board to help their peers identify potential routs to school, and also created artwork on the theme “imagine a car free world.” As a final culmination of their project, the CAP students presented their wok to the staff of the University of Colorado’s Environmental Center. The presentation took the form of a panel discussion in which the students explained their action project and answered questions from the audience. When asked, “who will take what they have learned and apply it to their lives,” every student raised their hand!
“This CAP class was, without a doubt, one of the best classes I have taken at New Vista… CAP helped me understand more about my place in the world and how I want to save it. CAP exponentially raised my awareness of the interconnected social and environmental issues that are embroiled in the world… it has helped me understand the incredible potential and opportunity I have as a high school student to make a true difference in the world.” ~Josie Brown
Our second trip to Calwood was a great success. We arrived to BEAUTIFUL weather, hiked to our base camp, made natural shelters, partook in a cooking competition, practiced our fire skills, and then played stalking/night games till we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer! On day two we learned about fire mitigation and helped Calwood out by cutting down trees. Our group cut so fast we were able to end the service project early, play a few more games, and get a little bowdrill practice in! We had a great time!
Natural Shelters:
Sam builds his natural shelter
Dionte tries his out!
Matthew practices one-match fires
Cottonball fires
Our first overnight to Golden Gate Canyon State Park was a blast! For most of the students it was their first time camping overnight in a tent. We practice many skills including map and compass skills, fire skills, leave no trace principles, cooking, and nature awareness. We also went on a long hike and few of us bravely ate some grasshoppers. Here are some pictures we’d like to share:
The whole group overlooking the Continental Divide
Tavier and Kenia enjoying our hike
Zach and Kenia practicing their fire skills
Zach roasting grasshoppers
Jacob tells us ghost stories around the fire
Oktobre and Kenia practice the bowdrill
Edward finishes our LONG hike!
Welcome to the Cottonwood Institute Store where you can shop with a conscience! We have partnered with amazing organizations to set up an online store so our students can get the gear they need for our courses and visitors can shop for the holidays, birthdays, and special occasions. Everyone can feel great about their purchases because when you shop by clicking on the links below, a percentage of your sale goes to help underwrite our educational programs at public schools in the Boulder/Denver area. So go crazy and shop till you drop! Best of all, shipping is included!
Official Cottonwood Institute Survival Knife: There are thousands of knives on the market, but no knife compares to the Frosts Mora Clipper. This is a full-tang carbon steel blade making it the perfect survival knife at a very affordable price. Carbon steel is easier to sharpen and maintain than stainless steel. It may rust in wet or humid conditions, but it will not compromise the integrity of the steel and is easily removed with steel wool. This knife is the best bang for your buck and is field tested and highly recommended by the Cottonwood Institute. Price: $25.00 each. Shipping Included!. Please Note: All net proceeds from the sale of our Survival Knives will go to help underwrite our educational programs at public schools in the Boulder/Denver area. To order your official Cottonwood Institute Survival Knife:
The Cottonwood Institute’s educational philosophy is based upon two major tenets: environmental education and service-learning. We wanted to take the opportunity to define these and other pedagogical approaches and techniques used to teach our educational programs. These definitions offer a very broad explanation to complex terms, but attempt to synthesize these key terms into understandable tidbits of information.
Environmental Education – Environmental education incorporates experiential teaching methods to educate students about the natural systems and functions of our planet, issues affecting the natural world, and gives students an opportunity to formulate their own opinions on being active to protect the environment. In the modern and technological age, people have become more disconnected from the rhythms of natural world than any other point in time. “The term ‘nature-deficit disorder’ was coined by author Richard Louv in his book Last Child in the Woods to describe what happens to young people who become disconnected from their natural world. Louv links this lack of nature to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.” Source: No Child Left Inside. For information about nature deficit disorder and the No Child Left Inside movement to address this problem, please Click Here. For more information about Environmental Education best practices, please Click Here.
Service-Learning – Service-learning offers a unique approach to community service and volunteering. Community service and volunteering can have a negative connotation because it is often used as a method of punishment when students or citizens get in trouble with the law. Service-learning seeks to link service with a real community need, and promotes civic engagement while having a real application to the curriculum students are learning in the classroom. Waldstein & Reiher (2001) define service-learning as, “a pedagogical approach to education which links community-based service with academic goals through critical reflection” (p. 7). For more information about service-learning, please Click Here.
Experiential Education – Experiential education has three primary components: action, reflection, and transfer. Students learn by engaging in hands on experiences that create new learning. Students then reflect on this new learning to make the experience even more personal. Finally, the students incorporate this new learning into other areas of their lives to complete the “transfer” of knowledge. According to Proudman (1992), “experiential learning combines direct experience that is meaningful to the student with guided reflection and analysis. It is a challenging, active, student-centered process that impels students towards opportunities for taking initiative, responsibility, and decision making” (p. 241). For more information about Experiential Education, please visit the Association for Experiential Education.
Outdoor Education – Outdoor education incorporates experiential teaching methods of action, reflection, and transfer in an outdoor or wilderness setting. Throughout this thesis I will use the terms outdoor education and adventure education synonymously. However, I think that adventure education is representative of a broader category, or umbrella, which encompasses both outdoor and environmental education. Adventure education also incorporates indoor challenge and teambuilding activities, which does not necessarily fit into my paradigm of outdoor education. While there are many opinions about the distinctions of adventure education, outdoor education provides students with an opportunity to develop wilderness skills, awareness and appreciation for the natural world, and offers an opportunity for group development and personal growth through a series of physical and emotional challenges in a supporting environment.
Community – The term community has a multitude of interpretations. Some people define community by their friends and family, by a geographic location, or by a common hobby or trait. For the purpose of this thesis, I view community as a deep relationship that begins with a group of committed individuals – committed to each other and to a common cause. But community goes beyond a small group of committed individuals. Demonstrating a strong sense of community is also defined by active participation in civic, political, and social activities and by actively expanding one’s social networks.
Civic Engagement – Civic engagement refers to how people exercise their duties and responsibilities as citizens and how they are linked to their community. Civic engagement is contingent upon people being actively involved with their community on a variety of levels. According to the report The New Student Politics: The Wingspread Statement on Student Engagement (2002), college students from around the country presented a different perception of civic engagement:
The manner in which we engage in our democracy goes beyond, well beyond, the traditional measurements that statisticians like to measure us by, most notably voting. Indeed, student civic engagement has multiple manifestations including: personal reflection/inner development, thinking, reading, silent protest, dialogue and relationship building, sharing knowledge, project management, and formal organization that brings people together. Cultural and spiritual forms of expression are included here, as are other forms of expression through the arts such as guerrilla theater, music, coffee houses, poetry, and alternative newspapers (p. 1).
Social Capital – The concept of social capital refers to the social connections which members of a community share and can be characterized by social networks, companionship, mutual support, cooperation, trust, fellowship, sympathy, and good will. Social capital is measured by political participation, civic participation, religious participation, connections at school or in the workplace, informal social connections, altruism, volunteering, philanthropy, reciprocity, honesty, and trust (Putnam, 2000). To put it more simply, social capital looks at the social and civic networks of a community and attempts to measure how well individuals, families, and members of a community interact with one another within those networks.
Cottonwood Institute educational programs address a variety of topics including essential camping and wilderness survival skills, environmental education, and changing the world. We have had several requests for book recommendations, so we have compiled the following list that we have in our library. We recommend buying your books through a company called Book Sense, an online family of independent booksellers. When you purchase a book from this list, a percentage of your sale will be donated to help underwrite our public school educational programs in the Boulder/Denver area. Click on the link below, enter your zip code, and choose your favorite local independent bookstore!
ESSENTIAL CAMPING AND WILDERNESS SURVIVAL SKILLS:
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION:
- Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, by Jon Young
- Earth in Mind, by David orr
- Earth Speaks, by Steve Van Matre and Bill Weiler
- Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West, by Gregory Tilford
- Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire, by John MacLean
- Land Above the Trees: A Guide to American Alpine Tundra, by Ann H. Zwinger and Beatrice E. Willard.
- Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv
- Plants of the Rocky Mountains, by Kershaw, MacKinnon, and Pojar
- Scats and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains, by James Halfpenny
- Snow Sense, by Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler
- Vicious: Wolves and Men in America, by Jon Coleman
CHANGING THE WORLD:
- Better Together: Restoring the American Community, by Robert Putnam
- Better World Handbook, by Jones, Haenfler, and Johnson
- Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert Putnam
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond
- Cradle to Cradle: Redesigning the way we Make Things, by McDonough and Braungart
- Go Green, Live Rich: 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying, by David Bach
- Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, by Paul Rogat Loeb
- Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell
Want to see pictures from the second overnight? The Action Project? Otherwise… this is the place!
Click here.
Welcome to the Community Adventure Program. Before we get started, we
need to get some feedback about your outdoor experience, your thoughts
about the environment, your community, etc. Please answer this survey
honestly and to the best of your ability. The good folks who fund this
class use this information to assess the performance of the class and
this information will help us acquire new grants. Please Click Here To Take The Survey.
Welcome to the Community Adventure Program. Before we get started, we need to get some feedback about your outdoor experience, your thoughts about the environment, your community, etc. Please answer this survey honestly and to the best of your ability. The good folks who fund this class use this information to assess the performance of the class and this information will help us acquire new grants. Please Click Here To Take The Survey.
As the quarter comes to a close, I wanted to get some open and honest
feedback from this class about how to improve the CAP for
future students. This information will not affect your grade, but
please take it seriously. It will be reviewed by the school, the
Cottonwood Institute, and this information will help us secure funding to make this class accessible to other
high school students. Please Click Here to Take the Survey.
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