[Originally Published 07.25.2013]
Wow! Yesterday was a full, busy, but fun day! Once again, thank you to my sponsor Alcoa for making this trip to “Key Issues Institute” possible.
My day started at 6 am. I opted to go for a morning walk along the Blue River Trail in Silverthorne led by Mary, one of our facilitators this week. It was nice to get out in the brisk air and take in all of the scenery. I can’t lie though, the elevation here made the walk a little more challenging than I expected. Still, I’m very glad I got up early to participate in this 2.5 mile walk.
After breakfast, we learned more about what we would be doing here at the institute.
Here at Key Issues we’ve been learning how to guide our students through an investigation of an environmental issue. I’ve already picked up new strategies, such as “Human Graphs” that I could apply to any topic in my health class.
Later in the morning, we boarded a bus from the conference center at La Quinta Inn to Keystone Science School. The location was amazing and lunch was delicious!
It started to rain outside while we were eating but a little of rain would not deter us from our geocaching activity. This was my first time, but once we figured out how to use the GPS we completed our task.
Then, it was back to the hotel. After a little break, we worked with maps and learned a way to help our students understand countour maps, making 3-dimensional models out of construction paper.
During the latter part of the day, we went back to our investigation of a local environmental issue. Our facilitators performed a skit while we considered the various hypotheses, values, interests, positions, and players involved with the issue.
After yesterday’s session was over, we had dinner then I checked in with the family.
I felt brave last night and decided to go out for a run. I figured that I must be acclimated now since I felt pretty good all day. I was wrong.
Sadly, I needed to take more walk breaks than I anticipated. Running at 9,000 ft is no joke! Still, it was a gorgeous evening and I’m glad I got a couple of miles in.
Coming up tomorrow, a recap of day three. Spoiler alert: There will be a lot of scenic pictures.
What is an environmental issue affecting your local community?
