Growing Up Boulder Transitions | |
Olivia Szeliga, Americorps VISTA | | |
Vanessa Schatz, GUB consultant and GUB board member | | |
Michelle Sioson Hyman, GUB board member | | |
Aidan Chopra, GUB board member | | |
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The end of 2022 was extremely busy for the GUB team as we wrapped up projects with young people (see below), prepared summary reports, and planned for 2023.
December was also a time of transition. Olivia Szeliga, our beloved Americorps VISTA member who served as our Communications and Development Coordinator, finished her term with GUB. We are so grateful for Olivia's service with Growing Up Boulder, and we will miss her kindness, diligence, and intelligence!
We thank GUB board member, Vanessa Schatz, for serving on the GUB board through December 2022. Prior to serving on the board, Vanessa consulted with GUB on business development, strategy, and communications for 1.5 years. She was instrumental in designing our current strategy, building the board from scratch (when we moved to CNDC), and in leading GUB's first and very successful FUNraiser in 2021! Vanessa helped Growing Up Boulder "grow up" (but not too much--she always retained a sense of play). Thank you, Vanessa!
A final transition is that two of GUB's founding board members completed their 2-year term and transitioned out. Michelle Sioson Hyman and Aidan Chopra helped GUB make the leap from being a program at the University of Colorado to becoming a nonprofit project under the fiscal sponsorship of the Colorado Nonprofit Development Center. GUB wouldn't be blossoming as it is today without their leadership.
Please join us in thanking Olivia, Vanessa, Michelle and Aidan for their contributions to Growing Up Boulder! And stay tuned to learn about our new board members and team members in the February newsletter!
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Nature Connection, Action, and Hope | |
in the Classrooms of Columbine Elementary | |
Growing Up Boulder, in partnership with Classrooms for Climate Action, Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks, and Boulder's Stormwater and Flood Management departments, led the fall semester of the Nature Connection, Hope, and Action (NCAH) project at Boulder's Columbine Elementary school. NCAH was designed to teach fourth grade students about nature stewardship, Indigenous knowledge, and climate justice. Fourth grade students studied Goose Creek, a creek that runs through the neighborhood near the school, and created flood mitigation models which they presented to community leaders December 6, 7, and 8th. To learn more, visit our webpage, read our comprehensive report, and read the Daily Camera article (below). | |
"We can help the adults. They learn more when we share something with them. Maybe they will pass on what we told them.”
- Fourth grader Daphnne
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Nature Connection, Action, and Hope | |
At the Right Here Right Now Conference | |
Our Columbine students also had the unique opportunity to showcase their flood mitigation models at the Right Here Right Now Conference, the United Nations-affiliated Global Climate Summit at the University of Colorado Boulder. Learn how they partnered with CU Theater students for an impactful day of learning and fun on page 12 of the Nature Connection, Action and Hope report. | |
With Whittier Elementary and CU ENVD Students | |
In summer of 2022, Growing Up Boulder began a partnership with the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP), CU's Community Engagement Design and Research (CEDaR) Center, and Assistant Professor Emily Greenwood's Environmental Design (ENVD) class to create the "Eco-Healing Project." Eco-healing - the ways in which connecting to nature can help communities process and heal from traumatic disaster events and create educational opportunities around climate change and natural disasters - was designed in response to recent wildfires in the Boulder community.
Over the summer and fall, GUB conducted a number of community engagements with the local children and teens to explore emotions around fires in our community and the growing threat of climate change. In fall of 2022, Greenwood's undergraduate class extended the ideas collected from children and youth to her third-year landscape architecture students. Greenwood's students then designed interpretative education opportunities, which reflected the children's ideas, along the Marshall Mesa (and adjacent) trailhead.
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On December 7, Whittier and ENVD Students presented their their designs to community leaders, who will incorporated their suggestions into future designs for city trailheads. Our report on this work is forthcoming; in the meantime, enjoy our website and the article (below) about this work. | |
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In the summer and fall of 2022, Growing Up Boulder and partner Mayamotion Healing continued elevating the voices of young people in Window IV of the "Reimagine Policing" project or Police Master Plan. The team worked with young people from TGTHR, the ELLOS program at El Centro Amistad, the City of Boulder's Youth Opportunities Advisory Board (YOAB), BVSD's Youth Equity Council (YEC), and Boulder County's Generations program. The fall work culminated in a Police-Youth Dialogue, which will likely be the beginning of intergenerational dialogue, not the end. We hope to release GUB/MMH's report on Window IV within the next month. | |
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"It [the Police-Youth Dialogue] was an invaluable experience, and I’m so lucky to be a part of it. It was great to get to know the police chief and other kids, and see the ideas and thoughts they had about the current policing situation."
- Sean, local high school student
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