Osprey Blocks
The Animas Experience – thinking creatively about public education
Osprey Blocks are three-week long courses designed to engage students through academically rigorous, cross-disciplinary, immersive studies that connect classroom learning to powerful, real-world experiences. The world becomes our classroom, and Osprey Block classes take advantage of the shift in our schedule by engaging in more frequent off-campus excursions and activities, including wilderness-based expeditions and travel. Osprey Blocks are team-taught, and students receive .5 academic credit upon successful completion, as they do for semester-long elective courses.
Ospreys Blocks are just one of the many programs that provide students The Animas Experience, but it is also one of the more expensive programs to run. AHS provides Ospreys Blocks at reduced course fee levels to support greater equity and access for students and families. No family will pay more than $150 for a domestic Osprey Block, but this will only cover 40% of the total cost of the program. AHS subsidizes the program from its budget.
This is why we ask for your support today. By making a tax-free donation to Osprey Blocks you allow choice, not cost, to guide student decision-making while ensuring other robust, school-funded programing can continue. Our budget is not unlimited (we wish it were!) but it can be flexible with your support.
Help AHS continue to think creatively about what public education can look like.
Osprey Blocks
Fall 2024 Osprey Blocks will take place September 17 through October 3.
| Course Title | Course Instructor | Course Description | Overnights | Course Fee |
| Climbing | Kyle Edmondson and Alec Johnson | In this block we will explore responsible climbing and engagement in the outdoors through both active participation in the sport and engagement with the local community. Academic content will focus on the physiology of training and access issues, including land management, environmental concerns, and social barriers to participation. Students will build training tools, implement them at the school, write personalized training plans, seminar on access issues, and engage directly with the Durango Climber Coalition. Students will be in the field three days a week, including a three day trip to Joe’s Valley Utah. | 3 day trip to Joe’s Valley, UT (tentative dates Monday 9/30 through Wednesday 10/2) | $150 |
| Cooking is Culture | Kat Jackson,
Lauren Lucky |
Students will learn basic culinary skills, nutrition, food and utensil safety and healthy cooking on a budget. We will learn about food and culture and prepare foods from various cultures. Activities will be both on campus and off campus. Students will cook at the commercial kitchen facilities at Manna Kitchen or the FairGrounds.. We will spend some days volunteering at Manna Kitchen to help the community.
During the block, there will be a 3 day trip to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Students will tour the farm and enjoy an elegant picnic lunch at Los Poblanos Lavender farm. In Santa Fe, students will take a guided food tour of local restaurants in the plaza, tasting dishes and learning pre-colombian influences on food in the Southwest. In Santa Fe, they will participate in a hands-on cooking class with a professional, preparing a traditional meal featuring New Mexican Tamales. The last week will culminate in a chopped-style competition between groups. |
2 overnights in Santa Fe & a visit to Albuquerque
(tentatively Monday 9/23 through Wednesday 9/25) |
$150 |
| Crafting Careers and Clay | Cameron Elder | This is a block that gives an immersive experience in the world of working as an artist. You will be engaging in the medium of ceramics while learning the ins and outs of running your own business. The class will lead us to the Painted Turtle Studio in Mancos 2-3 days a week where we will have an opportunity to experience taking clay from its raw form to finished ceramic. This will allow hands-on practice with mixing glazes, finding natural clay, firing, throwing on a wheel, and keeping a studio clean. Artists of many disciplines from around the community will engage with the class for us to learn best practices around being a business owner in the art world and how to make it a lasting career. This includes local photographer Jordan, from Ponderosa Portraits, who will act as a business coach for the block. By the end of the course, students will all have finished ceramic pieces and a developed business plan that could be implemented in their future as artists. | No overnights | $50 |
| Dungeons & Dragons Production | Ande Lloyd, Oliver Kennedy | Students will create a table top role playing game show over the course of three weeks. They will write and produce a story using Dungeons & Dragons as the storytelling medium, and film and livestream the entire experience in a 3-6 episode adventure. Each episode will be approximately 1-2 hours long. | No overnights | $50 |
| Future of Food | Madi Neukirch, Genevieve Buzan- Dansereau | Where does our food come from, and how can we create a more sustainable future? This three-week block aims to highlight unique challenges within our regional food system and explore various solutions. We will examine the science, economics, and philosophical viewpoints behind the systems that feed us. We will engage in hands-on learning, including through farmwork, apple pressing, and building hydroponic systems. Topics will vary based on student interest but may include regenerative agriculture, GMOs, lab-grown meat, dietary restrictions, and greenhouses. | No overnights | $50 |
| A Life Well-Lived: The Pursuit of Wellness and Self-Knowledge | Erin Skyles, Jessica McCallum | The students in this group will investigate deeply what it means to live well inside a healthy body, mind and spirit. We will incorporate daily yoga practice, nutrition and healthy meal prep, one-on-one counseling/coaching services and comprehensive nutrition education throughout the 3 weeks. There will also be a personal exploration component where the students will utilize writing and artistic methods to process and communicate their own wellbeing strategies. | 4 days, 3 nights at Deer Hill Expeditions, dates TBD | $150 |
| Music | iAM Music Staff | iAM MUSIC is thrilled to introduce an Osprey Block this year, offering a multifaceted music program. Students will rehearse a set of music for a final performance and learn standard music industry practices to effectively market and launch their show. The group will set up radio interviews, engage in basic music production, compose an original song, and even busk, weather permitting. This course is designed to be an interactive music experience, encompassing marketing, songwriting, improvisation, performance, and music production, all within a three-week timeframe. | No overnights | $150 |
| Rainforest Studies in Costa Rica: A Service Learning Experience | Christine Imming, Sarah Brockett | In this course, students will explore connections between humans and animals, the land and culture of Costa Rica. Students will travel to Costa Rica, where they will eat, sleep and volunteer at the Costa Rica Animal Rescue Center for several days as this class is an immersive experience. Students will prepare food, clean and maintain animal enclosures, build activity toys, and provide enrichment for animals that live at the sanctuary. Apart from daily volunteer tasks, students will engage in learning activities that will include noticing, studying, learning and recording their experience. Students will walk away feeling connected to the world around them and understand their place and how their choices contribute to the preservation and/or degradation of the rainforest’s fragile ecosystem. Along with volunteer work daily there will be field trips to the beach and jungle to gain additional perspectives and information about Costa Rica, its ecosystem, the people and animals. | 11 nights in Costa Rica (tentatively scheduled for Thursday 9/19 through Sunday 9/29) | $1300 |
| Sailing and Reservoirs | Elliot Baglini, Osprey Parent Katie James | Students in this Osprey Block will learn how to sail, and assess the benefits and consequences of reservoirs in Colorado. Week one will be spent learning how to sail small boats on Lake Nighthorse with Sail Durango, while learning the scientific principles behind captaining sailboats effectively and learning about the history of Nighthorse. Week two will focus on the politics of water in the Colorado River watershed, the ecological impacts of reservoirs, and how those play out in our local reservoirs. The Block will culminate in a multi-day expedition on Lake Navajo where students will sail larger keelboats and debate the merits and issues of Lake Navajo. | 2 nights camping at Lake Navajo, Tuesday 9/24 – Thursday 9/26 | $150 |
| Script to Screen | Drew Semel | This block will dive deep into the art of storytelling through the medium of filmmaking. This immersive experience is designed to equip students with the knowledge and practical tools necessary to bring a cinematic vision to life. Week one focuses on pre production. – Students will analyze storytelling, film genres, and discover themes and ideas that matter to students. By the end of this week, each student will have a script and a production plan. Week 2 will focus on production. During this week, students will create and capture their footage and the necessary pieces needed to move from the paper to the screen. Week 3, students will discover the creative tools used in post production. Editing, visual effects and sound design will be the major theme of this final week. Throughout the 3 weeks, each student will have the opportunity to collaborate with fellow students, receive personalized feedback from peers and community partners, and build a portfolio piece of cinematic work that showcases an understanding and love for film production. | No overnights | $50 |
| Triple Threat of Environmentalism (Let’s Get SAPpy!) | Ashley Carruth, Mike Bienkowski | This block will explore the “triple threat” of environmentalism: outdoor adventure, environmental service, and civic action. Are you ready to dive deep exploring your relationship to the land that supports us? Are you ready to work super hard to give back to the environment? Do you consider yourself gritty? Are you excited about outdoor adventure AND environmental issues?
Students will be expected to perform 3 days of really challenging environmental restoration work, moving heavy objects over challenging terrain in potentially hot temperatures in a stunningly beautiful and remote location in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (Utah) in partnership with Grand Canyon Trust. We’ll follow those three days up with a hot shower before embarking on a 4-day wilderness experience backpacking in Capitol Reef National Park, during which we will hone wilderness and teamwork skills, and reflect on our place and role within our immediate human community and greater ecological community. We will finish by partnering with FLC faculty and students to explore how engaged citizenship,environmental policy, and lawmaking can be used to promote equitable and sustainable relationships between diverse stakeholders and the land. After Osprey Block, we may follow up by attending and participating in the White Mesa Uranium Mill Community Spirit Walk and Protest in late October. Schedule: Note: We will be gone for almost two full weekends.
|
In Utah for 10 days, Thursday Thursday 9/19 through Saturday 9/28 | $150 |
| Water in the West | Julian Springer, Lori Fisher | This interdisciplinary course explores the way we have shaped the Colorado River, and the way the river continues to shape us. In this course, students will explore the ecology, hydrology, and politics of the Colorado river. In our third week, we will travel down the Meander and Cataract sections of the Colorado River in rafts, supported by a Utah Outfitter, Holiday River Expeditions, to experience the things we have been studying firsthand, and find our own sense of place and responsibility on the river. In this block, students will learn about how the Colorado River has been portrayed in writing, the politics and history of water allocation in the SW region, and the history of the Glen Canyon Dam. They will explore how dams impact both the hydrology and ecology of the river, and will learn about the unique ecosystem that exists along the banks of the Colorado. In addition to academics, students will gain working knowledge of outdoor leadership and teamwork, river trip planning, and river running and safety. | On the Colorado River Saturday 9/28 through Thursday 10/3 | $150 |
| Wilderness Exploration and Landscape Studies | Dave Farkas, Britt Blasdell | This course develops students’ canyon and river-based expeditionary skills through design, implementation, and facilitation of expeditionary technical skills. This includes a 5 day self-supported canoe trip down the Colorado River from Potash boat launch to Spanish Bottom just downstream of the confluence of the CO and Green Rivers. Course outcomes include a working knowledge of trip planning and logistics; equipment use and care; minimum impact camping techniques; map and compass navigation; technical canyon travel, whitewater rafting hydrology and canoe-piloting techniques; risk management; and strategies for facilitating group dynamics and decision-making during collaborative, educational expeditions, geology and landscapes studies of the canyonlands area and the creation of a journal combing art, writing, and scientific studies.
In the context of expeditions into remote countries, students cultivate proficiency in outdoor technical skills related to canoeing along with an in-depth knowledge and rendering of the landscapes in which they are traveling. |
Boating on the Colorado River Tuesday 9/24 through Saturday 9/28 | $150 |