Telluride Institute
Watershed Education Program
"If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are" - Wendell Berry
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For the first time in the history of our Watershed Education Program our Demand has exceeded our Supply!
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During two full days and two half-days of programming in the Fall of 2008, the WEP co-directors had the opportunity to introduce a basic understanding of watersheds, and an overview of the San Miguel River Watershed in particular, to the 3rd/4th grades at Paradox Valley Charter School. The unit included a hands-on lesson in which the students worked in pairs to create their own watershed systems, an in-class verbal presentation by two working interns from an organic farm in the watershed (Indian Ridge Organic Farm), and outdoor games. The unit also included a full-day watershed tour, beginning at the confluence of the San Miguel and Dolores rivers, and ending at the base of Bridal Veil Falls; a full-day field trip to the Buckeye Reservoir; and a half-day field trip to Indian Ridge Organic Farm.
Unit Objective: Students will gain an understanding of general watershed geography: land, water, and living systems. Students will begin to comprehend how people and places interact with and shape one another, and why this interdependence is important and relevant to them.
Reflections:
“When we went to Buckeye my favorite thing was when I picked up the big blue crawdad.” Seth
“I especially liked the turkey on the farm!” Tabby
“We all really had fun with you, and learned a lot! Teachers" Becky & Katy
“I loved the animals at Indian Ridge Farm!” Jordan
We work locally to inspire and inform our regional citizens and help turn them into stewards who care for and protect their surroundings and do their business with the health of the San Miguel Watershed in mind. Our watershed is a one million acre basin through which flows the San Miguel River, from its headwaters in the 14,000 foot alpine peaks above Telluride to its confluence with the Dolores River in red rock canyon country at 5,000 feet elevation. Over 60% of the San Miguel Watershed is public land, including some of the nation's most beautiful and biologically intact landscapes. But there are many pressures on these high, dry, fragile ecosystems, as our watershed is also one of the two fastest growing areas on the Colorado Plateau and faces tremendous growth and change.
Our Mission
To contribute to the raising of a generation of informed stewards of place and community in San Miguel County. We aim to offer all programming free of charge throughout the entire Watershed. To create within each participant an investment in their educational future, their sense of commitment to their community and an understanding of their valuable place in their environment. To use the San Miguel Watershed as a non-arbitrary, place-based teaching tool of physical, ecological, hydrological, cultural, historical, and economic relationships. Exploration, study, and creative, hands-on learning within such a matrix is more interesting, vivid, and in the end, more meaningful and memorable.