Congratulations to Nature Kids/Jovenes de la Naturaleza (NKJN) partners! The Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education’s (CAEE) Awards Selection Committee recently honored NKJN with the 2018 Advancing Environmental Literacy Award for Excellence in Environmental Education!  

NKJN is an innovative, 5-year, $10M collective impact project that has 2 primary goals: 1. To connect Lafayette, CO youth and their families to nature and the outdoors through a continuum of free, pre-k to high-school, backyard to backcountry, and family integrated environmental education and outdoor recreation programs, including career training and paid employment. 2. To ensure all Lafayette youth live within a safe 10-minute walk to nature.

Fully implemented, this project will deliver 82 different formal and non-formal, pre-k to high school, family integrated programs, and log 500,000 participant contact hours. This project is made possible with funding from Great Outdoors Colorado, Thorne Nature Experience, and 32 NKJN community partners, including the project’s 6 lead partners: Boulder Valley School District, Cal-Wood Education Center, City of Lafayette, Parks, Open Space, & Golf, Cottonwood Institute, CU Science Discovery, and Thorne Nature Experience.

Nature Kids/Jovenes de la Naturaleza (NKJN) is currently in Year 2 of implementation, and is already having a tremendous impact in the Lafayette, CO community. In Year 1, NKJN served 11,914 participants with 71,020 participant hours. 2,000 Lafayette community members participated in at least one NKJN program – a significant reach in just one year.

According to one parent, “Hacen un gran trabajo para hacer que la naturaleza sea accesible y barato. ¡Es un regalo increíble para nuestra comunidad!” (“You do a great job at making the outdoors accessible and affordable. It is an incredible gift for our community!”).

Students and families of NKJN will proudly received the award at a luncheon on March 16th, 2019 at the Tivoli Turnhalle on the Auraria Campus in Denver.  Please join us in giving recognition to these fabulous students for their positive community impacts!

Many thanks to Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), The Larrk Foundation, PeyBack Foundation, our donors, and our partners for making this program possible.

Written by Interim Field Program Coordinator Cascade Lawrence-Yee