Programs

The Cottonwood Institute delivers award-winning, high quality, high impact environmental education and service-learning programs for schools, youth organizations, and adult groups.

Our programs are fun and exciting, teach students the essential skills to comfortably and competently explore the outdoors, and empower them to take action to address local environmental issues impacting the community.

Our programs are unique because they:

Blend classroom and field-based environmental education activities
Incorporate hands-on, project-based, student-directed, service-learning projects (a.k.a. “Action Projects”)
Are offered during the school day for academic credit
Meet state educational standards

If you are interested in scheduling a program, please call Madeline Bachner, our Program Director at 307.413.8029.

QUARTER/SEMESTER-LONG PROGRAMS:

Community Adventure Program: The Community Adventure Program (CAP) is the core educational program of the Cottonwood Institute and the first environmental education class of its kind offered for academic credit through the Boulder Valley School District. During this ten-week class, students go on hikes, overnight camping trips, learn about and discuss local environmental issues, choose an issue to address as a class, and collaborate with other local organizations to design and implement a student-directed Action Project to positively address their issue.

According to one CAP student, “The Community Adventure Program was, without a doubt, one of the best classes I have taken at New Vista High School. The Community Adventure Program helped me understand more about my place in the world and how I want to save it. 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.” CAP is currently being offered at New Vista High School, a public high school in Boulder, CO, and at West Denver Preparatory Charter School in Denver, CO serving primarily low-income Latino(a) middle school students.

If you are interested in scheduling a program, please call Madeline Bachner, our Program Director at 307.413.8029.

Earth Task Force: Earth Task Force (ETF) is a Cottonwood Institute-supported program designed to give students an opportunity to take the lead to address local environmental issues at their school and in the local community. With the support of our Cottonwood Institute Earth Task Force Mentor and teacher sponsors, students and staff meet twice a week during lunch to come up with fun, creative, and accessible solutions that the school, teachers and staff, and students can take to help reduce their school’s environmental footprint.

According to one participant, “The ETF completely turned my life around. I have gone from being a withdrawn, below average student to a dedicated student striving for excellence. I have been inspired to study environmental chemistry in college. Working with the ETF has shown me the importance of environmental issues and has inspired me to take them on.” ETF is currently being offered at New Vista High School in Boulder, CO and we are planning to replicate this model in other public schools in the Boulder/Denver area.

If you are interested in scheduling a program, please call Madeline Bachner, our Program Director at 307.413.8029.

WEEK-LONG PROGRAMS:

Cesar Chavez Organic Gardening Project: Students camp out for the week at a local organic farm, learn about the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez, practice leadership and teambuilding skills, learn about organic gardening and sustainable agriculture, and complete much-needed environmental service projects to give back to the farm and to connect with their local food source. Finally, in exchange for their service work, students will receive plants or seeds to plant their own organic garden at their home or at their organization to help feed and nourish their family or their community.

Endangered Wolves and Animal Tracking: Students camp out for the week at Mission:Wolf, a wolf refuge located in south central Colorado, to learn about endangered wolves, practice wilderness survival and animal tracking skills, and complete Action Projects to help care for wolves and their habitat, which may include: food preparation for the wolves, feeding the wolves, maintaining fences, landscaping, building maintenance and construction projects, and gathering firewood.

Sustainable Living Project: We will spend the week camping under the stars at Earth Knack, a stone-age living skills school in Crestone, Colorado. to learn stone-age survival skills, including: stone tools, stone knives, primitive weapons, friction fire, and shelter construction. We also spend the week completing sustainable living service projects, including: gardening, composting, fire mitigation, and green building projects, while learning how to reduce our environmental footprint in this modern age.

Three Trees and a River Project: This course helps students raise an awareness of water issues affecting Colorado and helps them understand the importance of native trees in the Colorado ecosystem. Students camp out for the week, learn about native trees, how these trees can help them during a survival situation, complete a water sampling project, and end the course with rafting trip to connect with the local watershed.

Wildland Firefighter Project: The Wildland Firefighter Project is designed for adventurous students who want to learn more about fire ecology and wildfire behavior, receive wildland firefighter training, practice firefighter survival techniques, and learn more about the controversy surrounding wildfire management. During this course, we will also complete much needed wildfire mitigation projects to minimize the fire danger of the Upper Arkansas Valley working closely with the Colorado Firecamp, a wildland firefighter school in Salida, Colorado.

If you are interested in scheduling a program, please call Madeline Bachner, our Program Director at 307.413.8029.

WEEKEND PROGRAMS:

Essential Survival Skills Overnight: The Cottonwood Institute is excited to offer a 2-Day Essential Survival Skills Overnight to practice the skills necessary to stay alive during a real short-term survival situation. During this 2-day course we will hike to a base camp where we will most of the first day learning survival priorities, building natural shelters, and starting environmentally responsible fires using primitive and modern methods. We will then break into smaller groups and pretend we are in a real survival scenario to put our skills to the test in a controlled environment. On day two we will debrief our survival scenario, discuss long-term survival considerations, water location and procurement, rescue techniques, and learn how to make a personal survival kit to address 3-season survival priorities.

Mt. Evans Volunteer Project: During this course, we will collaborate with the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative to help protect and preserve Mt. Evans. We will camp out, sleep under the stars, and help complete much needed trail maintenance and ecological restoration projects on one of the Colorado Front Range’s most heavily impacted 14,000 foot peaks. This is a great course for adventurous folks who are compelled to give back to the mountains we know and love and to make a positive impact.

Operation: Military Kids Weekend Adventure Overnight: During this course, we collaborate with Operation: Military Kids to serve teenagers of military families serving our country. Our military families have given so much to our country and it’s our turn to help these American heroes by providing a fun opportunity for their children to get out of the house and into the outdoors to practice survival skills, leadership skills, and complete environmental service projects to give back to the land.