Snow School

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Listen to FOI’s Lindsay Butcher’s 1/19 Interview about the Backcountry Film Festival on KMMT!

If you think you missed KMMT-FM’s John DeMaria’s interview with Friends of the Inyo’s Stewardship Director Lindsay Butcher last Friday (Jan. 19), you didn’t! Listen to a recording of it here to learn about  the Backcountry Film Festival, which Friends of the Inyo is hosting on Friday, Jan. 26, in Bishop, and Saturday, Jan. 27, in Mammoth Lakes.  Tickets are just $25 at FriendsoftheInyo.org/Events, and proceeds help fund this year’s SnowSchool, FREE to local 5th Graders. Happy listening…And if you like what you hear, happy sharing!

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Hot off the Press: The December Issue of Friends of the Inyo’s Juniper E-Newsletter is Here!

With a heart full of gratitude, we bid farewell to another exciting year of Eastern Sierra conservation and protection in Friends of the Inyo’s December Juniper Newsletter. We provide plenty of opportunities for continued engagement in upcoming worthwhile projects in the most white and magical season that ends the Old Year while it ushers us all into the New Year! Happy reading! Happy sharing! And…Join us!

Snow School

What a Year for kids to learn about snow: At SnowSchool with Friends…of the Inyo!

By Lindsay Butcher, Stewardship Director SnowSchool is the nation’s largest on-snow winter ecology education program, with more than 30,000 annual participants at 60 sites across the United States. Developed by Winter Wildlands Alliance (WWA) to introduce underserved K-12 students to snow science and the wonder of winter landscapes, SnowSchool combines hands-on science education with snowshoe-powered outdoor exploration. The kiddos learn what the water cycle is and the part humans play in it, what our local watershed looks like and where we get our water from, where it goes, winter adaptations of animals/humans/plants, water-snow equivalency, and how to dig a snow…

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Two Stellar Days of SnowSchool with Mammoth Elementary School Fifth Graders

On February 13th & 14th, Friends of the Inyo partnered with the Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, Winter Wildlands Alliance, the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center, and the Mammoth Mountain Community Foundation to bring the SnowSchool curriculum to Mammoth Elementary School fifth graders for the second year. We were fortunate to get a quick dusting the night before our first day of SnowSchool. Perfect timing! The 2-3 new inches of snow provided a nice fluffy layer for the students to get used to their snowshoes. Though many had tried them out on the grass around campus during PE, this…

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SnowSchool Grows in Mammoth

Partner Profile: David Page of Winter Wildlands Alliance Friends of the Inyo’s Ben Wickham sat down at Mountain Rambler Brewery in Bishop with David Page, Mammoth local and Advocacy Manager for Winter Wildlands Alliance, to talk about SnowSchool, a national education program designed by Winter Wildlands Alliance with 60 sites across the U.S. that educate 30,000 youth each year. For more about SnowSchool, visit SnowSchool’s website. What is SnowSchool?  David Page: Snowschool is a program that is developed by Winter Wildlands Alliance and has expanded to about 60 sites, and reaches about 32,000 kids a year. The goal is to…

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SnowSchool Comes to Mammoth

SnowSchool happened this year in Mammoth! Winter Wildlands Alliance sponsors SnowSchool, a travelling curriculum of winter science and ecology lessons applied to outdoor educational opportunities. This winter, Winter Wildlands Alliance worked with Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association to coordinate the event and bring together groups like Friends of the Inyo, Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center, and Mammoth Mountain to get Mammoth Elementary 5th graders out into the winter landsacpe for a day. We scheduled it twice, and got cancelled due to epic storms, but we made it happen on Tuesday, March 21, even with another big storm. The kids were great- smiles…