Useful Resources for Action Project–transportation

Car Sharing– Zipcar

The Green Streets Initiative — Walk Ride Days

Go Boulder

CU Environmental Center

Go Loco– A ride-sharing service in the Northeast.  This service uses facebook to connect people

Easy Environmental Action to Take…

Check out 41 Pounds  by Grist.org.  You can have your junk mail stopped or severlly limited for five years.

It costs some money - $8.50 per year. But look at what you get in return.  This from their website:

41pounds.org stops your junk mail and catalogs — protecting the environment. Junk mail wastes an incredible amount of natural resources and contributes to global warming. Our nonprofit service covers your entire household for five years, saving…

Time — No credit card offers to shred or unwanted catalogs.
Trees — Keep 100+ million trees in forests, cooling the planet.
Water — Protect 28 billion gallons of clean water.
Climate — Junk mail produces more C02 than 9 million cars.
Planet — We donate to your favorite charity when you sign up.

I just signed up, how about you?

First Overnight Fall Quarter!

The Fall 2008 Cap Crew has completed their first weekend overnight!  Well done ladies and gentlemen you were troopers through a sometimes wet weekend.  And your participation and enthusiasm wowed me as usual.

In our first overnight we….

• Learned back-country basics.
• Constructed Natural shelters.
• Played Capture the flag
• Explored and discovered…. the rock with the best view, how many people can fit in a very small tent and sleep through the night, the color of the sky at sunrise…
• Participated in an amazing mate circle, thanks Torie for facilitating!
• Played safely and ecologically with fire: strikers, one-match fires, and friction fires.
• Learned some new games.
• Fell asleep to the sound of the rain.
• And more…

To check out more pictures from our adventure.  Click here.

Web Journal Entry Due Thursday September 25th

QUESTION: How does your experience on our camping trip in “the backcountry” connect with our action project and your life back in “civilization?” 

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Grading and Expectations: The standard 4, 3, 2, 1 grading scale outlined in the syllabus will apply to these required journal entries. I expect you to put at least 15-30 minutes of time thinking about the question, writing and editing your response, and posting your comment. Comments that contain 2 paragraphs of well articulated thoughts with no spelling or grammar errors will receive a grade of a 4. If your journal entry is only 1 or 2 sentences you have not spent the time, energy, and level of thought I am looking for and will receive a grade of a 2 or 1. Because this is a public forum, proofreading, spelling, and grammar are key!

We’re going camping!

This weekend we will be heading out on our first overnight.  Check out the pictures of students practicing tent set up!

 

Nice work!

Check back next week to find out how these students put their wilderness skills to use!

First Quarter Update

The first quarter of the Community Adventure Program 2008-2009 has been action packed!! We started with getting to know each other and jumped right into local environmental issues, hiking, ecology, and choosing our action project topic! 

          As the instructor of this amazing course I am delighted to have a group of engaged, intelligent, and highly informed students. We have a versatile crew with much camping experience and an incredible knowledge of the environmental and cultural issues in the Colorado region. 

          In the first three weeks of class we hiked to Chautauqua several times, meeting up with Open Space and Mountain Parks representative Jenelle for an environmental issues hike. 

We also had a visit from Ellen Orleans of Go Boulder! who took us on a walk to explore community building, transportation, and public space. And we’ve been doing plenty of research about environmental “issues” and solutions to them.

Last week students voted on an issue to address for our class action project. It was a close race, almost a tie between “Transportation” and “Green Energy for homes,” but transportation won by two votes.

I am excited to see where the students’ channel their energy around the topic of transportation, and it will be amazing to watch the action project unfold. Our first over night is on the horizon and we will be practicing skills, scenarios, and covering camping basics to prepare.

  I’m thrilled to have such a fantastic group.  Keep up the good work and check in for more photos and updates soon!