Escrito en español más abajo. Written by Cottonwood Institute alum Kira Gilliland. Cottonwood Institute’s flagship program, the Community Adventure Program (CAP), has been at Centaurus High School in Lafayette, CO since 2017. More recently, Cottonwood created Changemakers, a high school leadership program for alumni of our Boulder County programs. The Changemakers program gives about ten… Read more »
Written by CAP Instructor Erin Angel (Escrito en español más abajo) Photos here! The Angevine Middle School CAP class had another fall adventure with a garden vegetable (technically a fruit) tagging along. Cukie the Cucumber and his human friends joined April Archer from SaraBella Fishing for a wonderful day of fly fishing on Waneka Lake…. Read more »
Written by CAP Instructor Erin Angel (Escrito en español más abajo) The Centaurus High School CAP class partnered with Lucky to Ride for our September Field Day. Feeling actually lucky to ride, 13 intrepid humans hailing from seven different countries came together for a joyful day of mountain biking and building community. We’ll leave it… Read more »
Written by CI CAP Instructor Erin Angel (Escrito en español más abajo) Once upon a hot September day, the students from Angevine Middle School CAP Outdoor Class insisted on taking a giant zucchini with them on their walking field trip. They named him Zucchi and they accidentally broke him in half during Ms. Angel’s safety… Read more »
Written by CI CAP Instructor Chelsea Tossing “Hoot, hoot!” I hollered across the field at Chautauqua Park to gather my students. “Ca-CAWWW” my students yelled back at me in their best bird impressions. On September 10th, the New Vista High School crew headed out to the Enchanted Mesa trailhead for our first walking field day… Read more »
In this long, long school year full of challenges, what I was looking forward to most was teaching this group of students at Centaurus High School. I saw the class list at the beginning of the school year and recognized some amazing returning students and a class that was well-balanced between English language learners and… Read more »
The Angevine Middle School 4th quarter class was a hybrid class with some students attending online and the others attending in person. When the quarter started, it was the first time many of the students had been to school in a year and, although the group had been in a cohort all year, they didn’t… Read more »
Years tend to demonstrate themes. Many of the mantras of 2020 and 2021 revolved around perseverance, tenacity, and responding to unprecedented challenges. If one theme were assigned to the Aurora Expeditionary Learning Academy (AXL) CAP class of 2020-2021, it would be complexity. Not only were these students faced with changing schedules and online classes, but… Read more »
What made Colorado’s 2020 wildfire season such an anomaly? What do you do if you sprain an ankle in the wilderness? Just how much food waste can one pound of worms eat? This spring’s CAP Class at New Vista High School answered all these questions and more! In one of our first units, students conducted… Read more »
For the first time, CAP class at AXL Academy has been offered as a yearlong elective, allowing students to dig deeper into environmental topics and issues specific to their community. CAP Instructor Katie Morton shared some reflections on the first two trimesters as her class moves into spring: In the last year, the words “unprecedented,”… Read more »
