2018-Lake International @ Sloan's Lake

Start Date-End Date: 10/26/2018-10/26/2018 Land Manager Office: City and County of Denver - Parks and Recreation Land Manager Contact: Lawrence Luevano Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Lake International School Summary: This is project is part of the Play, Learn, and Care program, where we have collaborated with Lake International Middle School to provide a day of recreation, education, and stewardship in the outdoors. This is the 2nd to last project for the pilot program and will be located at Sloan's Lake. Description: This project will consist of 3 groups doing rotations between playing, learning, and caring. The play and learn components will take place with CMC, slack lining and learning about the wildlife Sloan's Lake has to offer. The stewardship portion will be with VOC and DPR, doing the following activities: 1) Mulching trees and painting 2) Removing willows 3) Cleaning up the lakeshore Latitude/Longitude: 39.746792, -105.037341 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 100 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 4 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 98 Total Volunteer Days: 102 Total Unique Volunteers: 102 Total Volunteer Hours: 408 Staff Hours: 18 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: The actual project day went great! Although it was a nightmare to plan, Sloan's Lake was a great location and very convenient for the school. We began the day with a quick introduction to introduce the plan for the day and split into groups. The teachers split up the students into one large group of 54, a medium group of about 30, and a small group of 14. The large group began with trash pick up around the lake and although they complained a fair amount, they picked up about 6 bags of trash. It was not ideal to have the students meandering around the lake with the potential to slip on moss into the water or pick up trash with their bare hands, but overall this rotation was a success. Students responded to the trash pickup by saying they wanted to clean up their own campus, given how dirty the grounds were. The orienteering group had some trouble maintaining focus, with students not engaging in learning how to use a compass. The same happened with slacklining, with students saying they didn't want to be involved and then trying to slackline later in the rotation. The second stewardship group raked leaves into bags to be used as compost later. Again, the students primarily complained and did not understand the importance of the work or the reason why they were the ones doing it. The third stewardship group went to the school to pick up trash, which did not last long. Students dispersed fairly rapidly and we did not maintain focus. It was hard to maintain focus throughout the day, given how close they could be to their friends, bathrooms, cell service, etc. I think with a bit more support with each group, we could capture attention to try and get students to respect the day of service and focus in on the importance of engaging more. There were some groups that tried to make trash pickup a competition and game, which seemed to help them maintain focus. They liked when cleaning the area involved climbing on rocks and running with the pinchers. Some students even came back to repeat the stewardship portion and clean more trash. Successes and Challenges: Successes: CMC was an awesome partner. They had all materials for slacklining and orienteering and brought 5 staff to manage 2 rotations. They were super flexible with the date/location changes and were great at engaging with students. The kids liked walking around the park to pick up trash and even requested that we move the trash pick to be on the campus because their front lawn was so dirty. DPR was a flexible project partner and allowed the youth to use their trash-pick-up tools when they indicated that they thought it would also be nice to pick up trash on the school's courtyard. Challenges: 1) Reserving transportation: It was so difficult to contact the correct person to plan transportation to Chatfield and it made it hard that there was not a point person that was doing all the planning at the school. 2) Commitment: Both the teachers and students lacked commitment on this project. Without a lead person at the school planning details, VOC had to take a strong presence in the planning process of the project. It was also hard that a lot of the students complained and constantly said that they did not want to be there when picking up trash. Maintaining focus on the orienteering and slacklines was also an issue. Lessons Learned: There needs to be a point person at the school that we agree will be the one to secure transportation, food, dates, and chaperones, and will be the day-of contact. I think Beth will be this person in the future, but in the conversation regarding sustainability, it is important that this person recognizes each piece of the project. The students have the ability to focus, but being so close to school and distractions does not help. We need to go to the mountains! Special Notes: Beth already set a date for the spring, which is awesome, and I think it would be possible for this project to happen again if the school comes to us. Funding for the recreational component would be lacking, but 2 VOC staff could do EV education and 1 could do the stewardship with a land manager. We could treat it as a typical Play, Learn, and Serve project with supporting the school in planning stewardship and EV education. Could we have volunteers that specifically are trained/like to work with youth support us on this project? One thing that I felt was that students are already in an environment where they are forced to be there, which is what I think most of the students went into this project thinking. There may be the potential to go into the school and ask what they want to do as their field trip. The presentation could be brief, but could begin with, we are working with your school to make one last project happen. What is something you'd like to learn, someway you'd like to help care for nature, and a recreational activity you like to do outside. We could speak to each class and assess the necessity for a Spring project. Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: There was a woman on the field where the orienteering station was happening that was being arrested, due to the fact she was using drugs. Students had initially tried to care for her and see what was the matter, but CMC leaders eventually saw alcohol/drugs being involved and had the students back away. Campus security and police showed up soon after. Description of Work Completed: