Beyond the Classroom
_Teacher Training_______
Beyond the Classroom
November 5-7, 2025
Registration is closed.
Professional development for teachers
Rate: $155 +processing fee
Beyond the Classroom is a 3-day professional development workshop for 4th-12th grade teachers and informal educators. Teachers will receive curriculum and training to explore local and regional issues using KSS’s non-biased framework, along with a complete set of lesson plans to facilitate an issues-based curriculum in their classroom.
This program lines up with the H2O outdoors program so your students can participate in the H2O program while you do the Beyond the Classroom training.
Teachers will learn how to identify stakeholders, conduct a field-based research project and gain background information to support policy recommendations within a chosen environmental issue. The closing activity will be a “Town Hall Meeting” where teachers learn to guide students to collaborate across differing opinions as they develop policy recommendations based on a local issue. We’ll be using the regional issue of water management in a demonstration of our issues-based curriculum.
Updated this year! Teachers will participate alongside our H2O Outdoors program for high school students, allowing teachers to observe the student experience to learn how an activity may be facilitated.
Program Schedule
We will be utilizing Keystone Science School’s 10 step framework for exploring environmental issues.
Day 1
Monday
| 10:30am | Check-in |
| 11am | Welcome and course overview |
| 1pm | Field Time |
| 3pm | Expert Panel |
| 4-5:30pm | Expert Panel Debrief |
Day 2
Tuesday
| 7:30am | Breakfast |
| 8am | Introduce & Define Local Issue, Open Discussion |
| 8:30am | Talking to local partners in your area |
| 1pm | Water Quality Testing as Research & Beetles example |
| 3-5pm | Observe research & data presentations from H20 participants, Observe plumbing the Colorado activity |
Day 3
Wednesday
| 8am | Collaboration vs. Competition Activities |
| 9:15am | Town Hall Observation |
| 11am | Town Hall Debrief, planning your town hall |
| 11:30am | Program wrap-up and survey |
| 12:00pm | Departure |
Program Goals
- Brainstorm and plan ways to facilitate an environmental issue-based curriculum based on a local issue for their own students.
- Analyze and interpret the perspectives of real-life stakeholders in Colorado water management through the lens of sustainability.
- Practice ‘solutions-oriented’ collaborative approaches to managing regional issues.
- Explain the concept of a watershed & identify major watersheds in the US, Colorado, and Summit County.
- Understand water supply and demand issues in Colorado and the Colorado River Watershed.
- Collect field data relevant to water quantity & quality.
Meals
Teachers will be provided all meals throughout the training which starts with lunch on the first day and ends with lunch on the final day. We have a full-service kitchen capable of meeting any dietary restrictions of participating teachers.
Lodging is included!
Teachers are welcome to arrive on Monday and stay through Wednesday morning. All teachers get a bunk within our spacious dorms and will be assigned to a room. Please note that you will likely have a roommate of your same gender, and lodging may be within the same building as students. Take a virtual tour of the dorms.
In the words of teachers
“We love that the kids are able to explore and experience the outdoors. We see camp as an opportunity for them to gain confidence, try new things and learn skills like leadership.”
“Camp opens up new experiences that she otherwise wouldnt have, gives her more exposure with different peer sets, and expands her problem solving. I’ve never seen her so tired!”
“”We love that kids are learning about nature and science and that they are outdoors enjoying themselves. Counselors are great!”
Program Sponsors
We are so thankful for our program sponsors who provide funding and curriculum support for Beyond the Classroom.
Bring your class to KSS!
Get your class outside with our field trips for schools! We have dorm based programs at our campus or camping programs throughout Colorado!
Dorm Based Field Trips
