Climate News

For students in the San Juan Basin, the water cycle no longer starts with a passing cloud dropping rain on a distant mountaintop. Thanks to a new curriculum resource, students can learn how water flows through the San Juan Mountains – from Engineer Mountain to the Animas River – and about the wildlife it encounters and the local reservoirs where it is stored.

The program, designed for third- through fifth-graders, is called “My Water Comes From the San Juan Mountains” and includes a storybook, lesson plans and activity kit. The project was a collaboration between the Mountain Studies Institute, San Juan Public Lands, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Fort Lewis College.

To read more about the program, click here.

"Navigating Climate Complexities in the Classroom"
June 7-8 and 14-15

The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness (CLEAN) Pathway project (http://www.cleanet.org/) is pleased to announce the continuation of our professional development opportunities to support teachers and faculty who teach
about climate and energy.

For undergraduate faculty, join our online workshop to be held June 7-8 and 14-15: "Navigating Climate Complexities in the Classroom.”  Workshop activities will include presentations about the climate system, examples of successful activities that illustrate the interactions between components of the climate system, work time to develop new classroom activities for teaching these concepts, and opportunities to collaborate and network with other faculty.

The workshop is free of charge and will be  held online so no travel is necessary. Space is limited and pre-registration is required by Friday, May 20. You must attend both sessions.  

For details about this event and to register, go to: http://cleanet.org/clean/community/climateworkshop/index.html

COLORADO BASIN TOUR for teachers: Forests to Faucets Workshops
brought to you by Project Learning Tree/Project WET

June 13-15

An educational tour of the Colorado River Basin organized by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education will take place on June 13-15, 2011. Together with 100 local experts, educators, elected officials and water professionals, we will visit the Colorado River headwaters and hike in Rocky Mountain National Park, key tributaries such as the Blue River, tour energy facilities, a working vineyard in Palisade and water supplies on Grand Mesa.

Teachers can get 1.5 credits for participating in the "Forests to Faucets" Project WET/ Project Learning Tree workshop activities along the way. Cost to teachers (who register in time): only $100, because the $400 total registration fee is being subsidized by donors, including the City of Grand Junction Water Department, the Mesa County Water Association and the Forests to Faucets program Colorado State Forest Service).   Cost includes bus, lodging, meals and materials; to get the 1.5 credits is an additional $80. The tour is sold out, but we are holding a few places for teachers.

There are a limited number of scholarships available, so register as soon as possible by contacting Kristin Marharg at (303) 377-4433 or kmaharg@cfwe.org

Click here for complete tour information, including itinerary.

Colorado teachers - join your colleagues from Arizona, New Mexico and Utah as we explore the physical and human geography of the Four Corners region.  The Summer Institute is a graduate-level program consisting of classroom instruction by university professors and National Geographic-trained Teacher Consultants, hands-on activities, and field experiences. The Institute will focus on human-environment interactions in the Four Corners region, with field trips to Mesa Verde and the Mormon settlement in Bluff, among other sites.

For additional information and an application, visit the Colorado Geographic Alliance website at: http://www.uccs.edu/~coga/.

Questions - email coga@uccs.edu.
 

Alliance for Climate Education, Audubon Colorado and Earth Force present:
Energy Education Webinar

Thursday May 19th 4:30-5:30

Who: Anyone who is interested in Service Learning, Energy Conservation or Climate Change in the classroom.

What: Join us for an exciting webinar focused on bringing Energy Conservation into the classrooms using Service Learning. This event is sponsored by the Alliance for Climate Education, Audubon Colorado, and Earth Force and is open to educators, community partners, school administrators, support staff, and anyone else who is interested in learning how to save energy in schools. Expect to learn about hands on opportunities for students, learn how to conduct energy audits (including how to use kilowatt meters, laser thermometers and light meters), gather tools to use in your classroom or community setting, discover community resources to help you tackle environmental/energy issues in your classroom and network with others interested in service learning!

How: Contact Stephanie DeMattee and she will send you all of the details on how to
log-in to the webinar. 303-415-0130 or sdemattee@audubon.org

Workshop on...
Best Management Practices (BMPs):
What? How? and Why?

When: May 26, 2011
            9:15 am - 4:30 pm
Where: University of Colorado Law School
             Wolf Law Building, Boulder, CO

Cost: Registration is FREE, but required, as space is limited.

How are BMPs incorporated into well field developments and who decides? Are BMPs effective? How do we know? How much do they cost? Can they save operators money?

These questions will be explored through presentations and discussions. Participants are encouraged to listen, learn, and share their experience with other workshop participants.


For Workshop Agenda and Registration and other logistic information, click here.

The workshop is sponsored by the Intermountain Oil and Gas BMP Project of the Natural Resources Law Center. Funding is provided through an Outreach Grant from the University of Colorado and a project grant from the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America through the Environmentally Friendly Drilling Program.

Making the Global Local is an innovative teacher workshop in which CU scientists, teacher educators and science teachers will share their expertise and collaborate in the development and piloting of reform-oriented lessons that frame issues of climate in Colorado. As a participant in this course, you are partnering with the School of Education and the Office for University Outreach at CU-Boulder to form the Making the Global Local (MGL) community. The goal of the course is not only to support teachers in deepening their climate literacy, but also to develop and pilot new climate change lessons for CU’s LearnMoreAboutClimate web site.

This year the course will be held from June 6-10 at the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There will be at least one half-day field trip as part of the course. In addition, a small amount of advance preparation will be needed to familiarize yourself with the wiki technology used during the course and to take a short pre-test. The course consists of the five-day summer classes, a fall enactment of the lesson you co-construct during the summer classes, and a final follow-up evening meeting to submit completed lessons. There is no fee for this course due to support from CU Outreach and you will earn GTE credit through your participation in this course.

If you are interested in participating in this course please email Deborah.morrison@colorado.edu to be placed on the course list. The course will be capped at 20 participants.
 

This FREE one day workshop will provide an introduction to the NAAEE ‘s Guidelines for Excellence in K-12 Learning and Nonformal Environmental Education Settings.

When: May 7, 2011

Where: Nederland, Colorado

What: The NAAEE Guidelines for Excellence provide a set of recommendations for developing and administering high quality environmental education programs in schools, museums, parks, camps and nature centers.  Participants will receive copies of Excellence in Environmental Education: Guidelines for K-12 Learning and Nonformal Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence, as well as other resources for staff training, curriculum development and program administration.

Workshop Objectives:

·        To identify the key characteristics of high quality environmental education programs;
·        To discuss the relationship between program design and program evaluation; and
·        To describe how other documents in the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education series can be used to develop quality programs.

Who Should Attend?

Pre-Service and K-12 Teachers, Environmental and Nonformal Educators, Rangers, Interpreters and Guides, Education Designers, School and Program Administrators

Details and Registration:

This FREE workshop will be held at the Wild Bear Mountain Ecology Center, 20 Lakeview Drive, Suite 107, Nederland Colorado, from 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM, on May 7th with an optional drive and hike to the historic Caribou mining area and stellar views of the continental divide later in the day.  Participants should bring drinks and brown bag lunches, though other food options are available nearby. 

There is limited space and resources so pre-registration is required.

For more information or to register for the workshop please email Eric Carpenter at: eric@rockymountained.com or call 805.705.6026

March 28, 2011

You may have heard a little pika calling at you from an alpine boulder-field, or you may have seen one scampering over the rocks with a mouthful of flowers.  Sometimes called the “little chief hare,” this small member of the rabbit family is a vocal and bustling icon of alpine communities. It is also threatened by climate change.

Research Associate Christine Ray from CU-Boulder’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology will explore the nature and conservation status of pikas worldwide, with an emphasis on her research on the local species during her presentation, “Climate and the American Pika,” on Thursday, April 7.

The program is part of CU-Boulder’s “Learn More About Climate” initiative that brings climate change-related topics to communities across the state.  LearnMoreAboutClimate.colorado.edu is an online tool that features five videos that localize climate change by pairing interviews with leading scientists and everyday Coloradans to explain how climate change is affecting our state.  The site also offers resources for teachers, students, policy makers and community members who want to learn more about this critical issue. 

Dr. Ray has studied pikas throughout the western US for more than 20 years and is the author of many scientific papers on threatened plants and animals.  She has taught field studies centered on the pika almost every summer since 1989 and has been interviewed about the plight of the pika for national and international news broadcasts. Her knowledge of pika behavior helped the producers of David Attenborough’s “Life of Mammals” film a special sequence on pikas.

The April 7 program is co-sponsored by the CU-Boulder Office for University Outreach, Arkansas Valley Audubon Society, Pueblo Zoological Society, Pueblo City-County Library District and the Nature and Raptor Center of Pueblo. It will be held at 7 p.m. in the InfoZone at the Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library, 100 East Abriendo Ave., in Pueblo. Tickets or reservations are not required and the event is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact outreach@colorado.edu.

CLEAN

"Teaching Energy Awareness: Understanding Sources and Uses"

April 11-12 and 18-19
Description: For undergraduate faculty, an online workshop will be held April 11 - 12 and 18 - 19: "Teaching Energy Awareness: Understanding Sources and Uses.”  Workshop activities will include presentations about sources of energy, examples of successful activities illustrating the relationship between energy types and their uses, work time to develop new classroom activities or courses for teaching these concepts, and opportunities to collaborate with other faculty. The workshop is free of charge and will be held online so no travel is necessary. Space is limited and pre-registration is required by Friday, April 1. You must attend both sessions.  For details about this event and to register, go to: http://cleanet.org/clean/community/energyworkshop/index.html

"It's a Feast! Climate Resources Galore on NASA's Global Climate Change Website"

April 11
Description: For middle and high school teachers, CLEAN will host a one hour webinar on Monday, April 11 :  “It’s a Feast! Climate Resources Galore on NASA’s Global Climate Change Website," presented by Laura Faye Tenenbaum, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Time – 4pm Pacific / 5pm Mountain / 6 pm Central / 7 pm Eastern . This event is free of charge but space is limited and pre-registration is required by Monday, April 4. For details about this event and to register, go to http://www.cleanet.org/clean/community/webinars/nasa.html 

More events are coming up in May and June – find the full schedule on the CLEAN Community page.

RAFT

"What is climate change?"

Tuesday, April 12th, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Description: “How do I know if Colorado’s climate is changing and how it will affect me?” this is the driving question that you and your students will investigate in a lesson designed by Colorado elementary and middle school teachers to integrate nature of science and climate science content. Join two science educators, Stephanie Chasteen and Deb Morrison, from the University of Colorado at Boulder for this evening workshop to explore this lesson designed for middle school science students. Adaptations for younger or older students will be highlighted. The inquiry-based lesson is student-centered with numerous internet resources. Students become familiar with the topic by discussing media coverage of climate change in Colorado, their own opinions about the topic, and evidence supporting their hypothesis. Featuring video, data analysis and group discussions and presentations, the lesson concludes with each student writing a newspaper article summarizing the class findings.

Cost: Members: FREE; Non-Members: $10

This workshop is made possible by the CU-Boulder Learn More About Climate project.

Sign up for the workshop here.

Project WILD and Project Learning Tree

"Using Sheltered Instruction"

April 16 & 17, 2011
Description: Projects WILD and Learning Tree are interdisciplinary, supplemental environmental, and hands-on education programs suitable for learners of all ages, types, cultures and ethnic groups. Activities have been correlated with the Colorado Model Content Standards for Science, Geography, History, Math, and Reading/Writing, and are available in Spanish. This workshop is designed for educators who teach Linguistically Diverse Students. Participants will participate in demonstrations of sheltering techniques for content area instruction and practice using rubrics for evaluating and modifying activities and text materials.

Click here to learn more and download the registration form.

Project WILD

"The Best of Books and Bears"

April 16, 2011 8:30am – 4:30pm

Coyote Ridge Elementary, Fort Collins

Description: Just as talking to the animals was a boon for Dr. Doolittle, reading about them and linking the reading to a wide variety of exciting activities can give a real boost to students’ basic and advanced comprehension skills! Use critter books, together with standards-based Project WILD activities, to improve comprehension strategies for all elementary levels. Participants will be provided with dozens of indoor and outdoor activities to enhance learning and motivation.

Cost: $15.00
1⁄2 continuing ed credit is available thru CSM for $35.00

To register:

Thompson Teachers use Coursewhere for TIC credit.

All registrants need to send a $15 check to: Betsy Perna, 1500 Lakeside Ave, Fort Collins, CO 80521. Include your grade, school, and email address.

For more info email betsy.perna@thompsonschools.org

Rocky Mountain Nature Association

"Spring Ecology"
April 16
Explore Rocky Mountain National Park as it wakes up from winter.  Learn about the biological changes happening within the plants and animals of this mountain ecosystem with CU professor Tim Kittel and how these changes help shape the decisions Park managers make about the valuable resources within this diverse area. Click here for more information.
 
For more information or to register for an educational adventure through RMNA, please visit www.rmna.org or call the Field Seminars Center at 970-586-3262.