Wildfires across the western United States are increasing in size, a trend scientists predict will continue given climate projections for the future. CU Boulder and many other institutions are increasingly focused on learning how a changing climate, one that is becoming warmer and drier, might impact the ability of forests to recover to their pre-fire state. The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Education and Outreach team developed a storyline curriculum, The Future of Forests, to bring university research into middle/high school classrooms. Students engage with online interactives, authentic data, and modeling activities as they seek to explain the driving question, “How do landscapes recover after a wildfire?”

Over the past two years, dozens of Front Range teachers have used The Future of Forests curriculum. This program will bring classrooms who have engaged with the unit to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) to participate in a fire ecology program run by RMNP rangers in which students will visit several burn areas and test ideas they’ve investigated in the classroom by observing and measuring post-fire landscape recovery.

The program will work with Front Range teachers who plan to implement The Future of Forests unit in their classrooms during the 2022/2023 school year. Teachers who have attended The Future of Forests teacher workshop and work with underserved student populations will be given preference. The program will cover transportation costs to and from RMNP. The fire ecology program facilitated by RMNP staff is free.

• The Future of Forests teacher workshop

  Additional Info

  View "The Future of Forests" free curriculum at https://cires.colorado.edu/outreach/resources/unit/future-forests

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  Location

  online resource

  Dates

  9/20/2022 - 4/10/2023

  Public or Private

  Public Program (open to the public)

  Program Fee

  No charge to attend/participate in activity or program

• Fire Ecology at Rocky Mountain National Park

  Additional Info

  Learn more about the Rocky Mountain National Park field trips at https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/education/rangerguided.htm

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  Location

  in colorado

  Estes Park

  Dates

  Ongoing

  Public or Private

  Public Program (open to the public)

  Program Fee

  No charge to attend/participate in activity or program