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Tips to help you connect your family to nature!
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 A traditional summer festival activity is the pie-eating contest! Both adults and kids had a chance to gobble up ! Bring on the Summer Outdoor Festival on Memorial Day weekend brought several hundred youth and families to River Bottom Park to join in a fun summer celebration! The festival was an opportunity to bring our community together and be outside enjoying games, food, and music. There was something for everyone. The idea behind the festival was to engage kids and families in outdoor activities that they could continue to do throughout summer. Organizations that provide summer programs, workshops and camps for youth were encouraged to participate and engage kids and families with a taste of their offerings for the summer. As part of the festival, a skateboard contest drew 17 competitors of all levels including Ollie Graves, an upcoming athlete from Western Colorado with Olympic potential. Prizes were awarded to the top three contestants in the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels as well as for the highest air, and best trick. The skate maneuvers were artistic and innovative attracting over 150 observers. Junktown Clothing and La Familia Music Group (LFMG) sponsored the contest. The competition drew teens and young adults to the festival. "We hope Montrose will be part of a regional competition and we can continue to host this as an annual event," said Johnny Sales, competition host. Other outdoor sports included a basketball tournament sponsored by Dripping Industries and disc golf sponsored by Aces Flys Dyes. "It was great to have the community come together at this festival and to see the teens and young adults wanting to participate in it. These types of events are needed in our community and we plan to provide more fun events like this in the future," said Edgar Quiroz, of LFMG Music Academy and festival co- organizer. In addition, a few timeless festival events included the cornhole tournament, pie-eating contest, and the ducky races - all with great prizes provided by Hot Water Productions, Mi Mexico, Fiesta Guadalajara, and Tacos and Beer. Safeway and City Market (South) provided the delicious pies! The Montrose Art Guild is hosting several summer youth art workshops and organized a bird art activity that attracted many young artists. After creating their own birds, kids were able to learn to identify common local birds with representatives from the Black Canyon Audubon Society. A few other activities included a fossil dig, displays of dinosaur skulls, rock painting, chalk art, bubble play, face painting, bouncy house, backyard games, free books for summer reading and much more. A Time to Dance featured several dance style demos as teasers to their summer dance programs, and Montrose Surf and Cycle provided wave surfing demos. The One Takers provided live music. LFMG Music Academy brought out a student artist to perform music he has been working on at the Academy during a short jam session. The festival is the primary fundraiser for the nonprofit Friends of Youth and Nature (FOYAN). All proceeds will help FOYAN cover the cost of getting more kids outside, which has been proven to help kids build confidence, resilience, healthy lifestyles, and skills for problem solving. One of FOYAN'S goals is to remove the barriers for our local youth to participate in nature experiences that build these traits. FOYAN helps cover the cost of bus transportation for many school district field trips, provides scholarships for underserved youth and other community youth for camps, assists with costs associated with field trips and nature learning events, and will expand available items in the free outdoor gear library for youth partners of FOYAN in Montrose and Ouray Counties. "We would like to thank our community members for their support of the event and our efforts to get more kids engaged in healthy, active outdoor activities. This event could not have been such a success without our sponsors, all the organizations that provided an assortment of summer activities for our youth and the invaluable volunteers that helped Bring on the summer - Outdoor Festival" said Anita Evans, FOYAN Chair We hope families and kids attending the festival took home a few new ideas for summer. Please join the fun next year and help us get more kids outside! Thank You to all the providers of youth activities for the festival: Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Colorado Canyons Association, Montrose Regional Library, Bill Heddles Recreation Center, the Montrose Recreation District, The Museum of Western Colorado, Montrose Art Guild, Hispanic Affairs Project, Audubon Society, Metaphorse (horse therapy), Montrose City Youth Council (all around festival help), Black Canyon Boys and Girls Club, Partners West (cornhole, ducky races), Second Chance Humane Society, Girl Scouts of Colorado, and Boy Scout Troops (490 and 491). List of Sponsors: Platinum ($1000+) Western Colorado Community Foundation Colorado Health Foundation The Kampe Foundation Montrose Hardware LFMG Music Academy Bronze ($500+) Circle of Dreams Foundation Montrose Community Foundation City of Montrose Bank of Colorado Grove Street Alchemy High Country Beverage Montrose Daily Press Colorado Boy Brewing Hot Water Productions Silver ($250) Chow Down Pet Supply Rocky Mountain Ice Bronze ($100+) Davis Service Center Montrose Ford Nissan Peer Kindness Alpine Bank San Juan Coffee House
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 Students use a nature guide to help identify the bird in hand. The Black Canyon Audubon Society volunteers host a learning station featuring taxidermy bird specimens to help students learn about bird adaptations to their environment and food sources, and how to identify birds likely observed in their neighborhoods during the North Fork Conservation Days (Paonia). It’s a bit like speed dating for adults only this event involves quick learning interactions for kids. Springtime environmental education events are ways for elementary students to engage with natural resource experts to learn as much as possible in a short period. Each dedicated specialist has 20-25 minutes to engage elementary students about their area of expertise with hands-on activities and tips about their jobs. Students rotate through 8 to 9 stations in a day to learn about many topics, such as how forests contribute to healthy watersheds, how various aquatic insects indicate water quality, what kinds of items can be recycled, and much more. Montrose, Grand Junction, and the North Fork Valley all have festivals organized and sponsored by many organizations, partners, and volunteers who work together to provide this opportunity for the youth of these communities.
Presenters, mostly natural resources experts from various agencies, explain aspects of their field that most kids, and even some adults, never think about. As an added bonus, students get insights into various natural resource careers. “These can be defining moments for young minds that may influence their choices for a lifelong passion or a future career path,” says Anita Evans of Friends of Youth and Nature, one of the funding contributors to the event. For the last 30 years, fourth graders from the Uncompahgre Valley have attended the Montrose event organized by the Shavano Conservation District. The Natural Resource Festival (previously known as the Water Festival) draws approximately 450 -500 students each year. This May students headed to Baldridge Park for a full day of fun learning activities. “Classes rotate through 9 learning stations, out of 29 featured at the festival, and engage in activities that demonstrate the connections between their lives and the resources they depend on. Activities are focused on all of our natural resources, with an emphasis on water connections in their lives,” explains Mendy Stewart, Education Specialist for the Shavano Conservation District, and festival organizer. “The activities are meant to be ‘hands-on’, where kids really get in the mix of things,” Stewart added. A wide array of resource topics and activities are featured such as: demonstrating how river water is treated before being sent to our faucets, making play-dough watersheds and determining where the rivers and lakes form after a simulated rainstorm, making your own recycled paper, panning for silver while learning about Colorado’s Mining history with the Colorado Department of Reclamation and Mine Safety, practicing moving water through irrigation pipes with the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users, measuring the flow of a nearby stream with a Colorado Water Commissioner and putting their math minds to work figuring the rate of flow in cubic feet per second (cfs). Other activities help kids to learn things like “Leave No Trace” and how to minimize impacts when exploring nature. The Colorado State Forestry Department sets up an experiment where students predict the amount and quality of rainwater runoff between two watersheds (actually dirt-filled culverts), one with plants and one with bare soil. After predicting the outcome of a rainstorm, the students learn how plant cover works to slow runoff, so it can be absorbed within the watershed. “This is a huge benefit to water quality, catching soil and pollutants before they reach rivers,” explains Tanya Banulis, Colorado State forester. Dave Dearstyne, retired Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) soil scientist, focuses students’ attention on detecting some of the millions of microorganisms living in our soil. Who would think to look that closely at dirt? This event involves a lot of planning and behind-the scenes work such as pre-festival classroom presentations and festival logistics. The festival's successes are attributed to the dedication of Stewart and the supporting host agency, the Shavano Valley Conservation District. Festival supplies, student transportation, and festival planning are made possible through matching funds to the Shavano Conservation District received from the Colorado State Conservation Board. The goal of this program is to help Conservation Districts in Colorado implement conservation projects and educational activities. In addition to the festival, the funds have also made conservation education available to San Miguel, Ouray, and Montrose County students. The activities also include source pollution presentations, 9th grade Mancos Shale Soil Salinity Experiments, and 5th and 6th grade conservation poster contests. Stewart says these events, “...inspire learning opportunities for Western Slope students who will be part of an outdoor savvy generation. We hope they will be empowered to use what they learn to influence future decisions about land and water uses that benefit our planet now and in the future.” Some kids take time to reflect about what they learned during the festivals; others are super excited and cannot stop talking about the day. Parents or relatives can encourage more discussion or help reinforce significant concepts kids learned. Ask your child what learning station impressed them the most? Here are a few questions that will help you start a discussion with your student: What can you tell me about the Gunnison or Colorado River’s journey to the ocean? What type of water bugs will you find in your favorite fishing spot? How fast is the river near you flowing this spring? What are the components of a beehive? How can you harness solar power? Can you use it to make a fruit smoothie or baked good? What should you put into your community’s recycle bins? What foods are produced locally and where can you find them? Friends of Youth and Nature is a non-profit promoting opportunities for youth and families to get outside, experience outdoor activities, and explore nature. Your donations as well as grants received by FOYAN from the Gunnison Basin Roundtable (DNR- Colorado Water Conservation Board) and Forever Our Rivers (Connecting Rivers and Communities) have enabled FOYAN to contribute funding for these festivals. |
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