C4 Classes to Continue Through 2030
C4's education director Ash Warner shows Lake County students Harper and Ava around C4's Cloud City Farm.
By Finn McNally for the Leadville Herald Democrat
February 12, 2025
Funding for Cloud City Conservation Center’s environmental education classes will continue through 2030. At their meeting on Feb. 3, the Board of County Commissioners approved an agreement between Get Outdoors Leadville (GOL) and C4 to use a $1.5 million grant to fund the classes.
C4’s classes are the result of a partnership with the Lake County School District and began in 2023. Students, PK-12, get outdoor, hand-on learning experiences led by C4’s education director Ash Warner. In addition to the grant from Get Outdoors Colorado that BOCC approved, the classes are also funded by the Life Time Foundation.
Classes vary based on age group but can include visits to C4’s Cloud City Farm or field trips to places around the county like Hayden Meadows or the Leadville National Fish Hatchery. Each class is intended to get students outdoors to understand and appreciate the natural world.
Clarity Barnes enjoys the Leadville National Fish Hatchery during one of C4’s environmental education classes.
“We really believe that in order to care about the planet and nature, you have to have a relationship with it,” said Emily Olsen, C4’s executive director.
Warner echoed Olsen’s sentiments and said that in-person, hands-on learning is an effective way to engage students with environmental education.
“C4's outdoor environmental education programs help students become knowledgeable stewards of Lake County by fostering an understanding of, and appreciation for, its unique natural environment,” Warner said. “Place-based, outdoor learning has the power to make lessons more tangible, relevant, and enjoyable for students.”
Since 2023, Olsen estimates that C4’s classes have reached almost 90 percent of Lake County’s students and she hopes to reach all of them. In the 2025 fall semester, Warner led 29 separate environmental education experiences for local students.
Younger students visited Cloud City Farm for Farm Club where they learned about harvesting and composting. High school students visited the Climax Mine and the Lake County Landfill to learn about waste management, environmental impact and remediation.
Lake County third graders explore Hayden Meadows during a C4-led field trip.
Margaret Pulte, a fourth-grade teacher in Lake County, told C4 that her students loved their trip to the Colorado Mountain College Leadville Campus where they learned about snow science and the 10th Mountain Division.
“C4 trips in general allow students to connect with Leadville and the great outdoors, and I am always excited to go an a C4 trip as a teacher because I know that I will be supported – Ash Warner does an amazing job planning and preparing for the trips, and her work takes a significant load off my shoulders,” Pulte said. “I am excited to keep working with C4 in the future, and both my students and I are excited for our trip to Camp Hale that is planned for the spring.”