Most of the fourth grade students at Eagle County Charter Academy have one thing to say to the people who decide how the Colorado River is managed: The policies that govern the river should change — and they have the evidence to prove it.
“It’s shared throughout the basin, throughout the seven states,” said Hunter Kapala, 10, who saw population growth as a big issue in the river basin. “I was like in my brain, ‘There’s like so many people in those states, and it’s just going to keep on growing. Because people have babies like every two days or three days.’”
The students spent weeks this fall studying the Colorado River — learning about how it supports 40 million people but its water supply has been shrinking — before staking out their policy positions in argumentative essays. If the students get their way, their essays will end up in the hands of the people who make the river policies.
Commissioner Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top negotiator for Colorado River issues, said in an interview with The Colorado Sun that she’d be glad to read them. Talking with kids helps simplify river issues, she said.
“That’s what I got from meetings with classes and kids before, and even my own kids: They’re able to see it, really clearly,” she said. “The solution is right there.”
Around 8 a.m. on a sunny Friday in Edwards, the fourth graders raced between cafeteria tables laden with newspapers, plates of half-eaten bagels and pastries. It was the relaunch of Breakfast with the News, when parents and their children can read newspapers and talk about the articles over breakfast.
“It hasn’t happened in a while, but it was something that I did here at ECCA and I just loved (it),” fourth grade teacher Rebecca Reid said. “It’s teaching the importance of intellectual discourse.”
Fridays at the charter school typically focus on education through experience featuring local field trips to mines, fossil sites, amusement parks (to study physics) and the Eagle River, which flows right past the school before eventually reaching the Colorado River near Dotsero.
This Fresh Water News story is a collaboration between The Colorado Sun and Water Education Colorado. It also appears at wateredco.org/fresh-water-news.
This particular Friday served, in part, as an informal lesson about primary and secondary sources and a way to wrap up Colorado River lessons.
“I love the Colorado River,” Eleanor Schofield, 10, shouted against the clamor of her chattering peers in the school cafeteria. “I already know how to raft through Class 2 rapids!”
She’s not the only one who loves the river: The students talked about rafting it, fishing on it and even making raps about it.
“Me and my friend — she’s in Florida, she’s supposed to be here — me and her made a rap about it,” fourth grade student, Stella, piped up before launching into the rap:
“When it gets hotter, there’s less water,
That’s not good for the Colorado River.
We need to change the Colorado River sharing policies, YES, QUEEN!
We need to change ’cause water evaporates, that’s not OK.
We need to change.”
Preparing the arguments
Students dove into the topic in September, reading news articles and watching documentaries on top of learning about the river in class.
Colorado history, civics and geography are key parts of the curriculum for fourth grade social studies, and with so much to teach, it helps to combine topics, Reid said. She teamed up with teacher Mike Moser to combine social studies and language arts lessons in writing and communication with a focus on the Colorado River.
Students traced the river’s 1,400-mile path on a U.S. map hanging on the classroom wall. Sheets of colored paper, taped to a storage cabinet in the room, marked the stages of the writing process, from the initial brain dump to editing and, finally, publishing.
Fiona Ball, 9, said she didn’t realize the river gave water to so many states, and at first, she was confused why Wyoming was in the basin until they talked about how tributaries and snow in Wyoming flow into the river. Several students were surprised that the river’s foundational agreement, the Colorado River Compact, was 101 years old.
“I didn’t know that we were in a drought and that there was like, I don’t know how to say it, like a conflict happening with the policies,” said Ryder Boord, 9.
By mid-November, the finished essays were proudly displayed in the hallway above cubbies overflowing with backpacks, jackets and school supplies. The central question: Should the Colorado River policies change? Most of the students said a resounding “yes.”
“Have you ever tried water skiing on dirt? Well that might be you in 20 or 30 years,” Boord wrote in his essay.
Their evidence? Lower Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — are using more than their fair share. The river basin provides water to cities like Las Vegas, Denver and Phoenix where populations are growing quickly. The past 22 years have been the driest in 1,200 years of records. The climate is changing and temperatures have risen by 2.7 degrees and that impacts how much water is available.
The river’s main reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, have been drained too much, several students wrote, which nearly caused a water supply crisis for millions of people. Not only that, but the Colorado River Compact was out of date: It was created without fully considering tribal water rights — and it overestimated the amount of water in the river.
“Colorado should change the current water sharing policies, for these reasons,” fourth grader Logan Davis wrote at the start of his essay. “The Colorado River no longer reaches the ocean and the water sharing policies are super old. Here is my evidence.”
What do the officials say?
A student turned to Reid one day and asked if they could send their essays to any of the people who decide the river’s policies.
“He was like, ‘Well then, can we send them (the essays) to them?’” she said. “Whenever a student approaches me with an idea, I want to honor that idea and follow through.”
Mitchell and state Sen. Dylan Roberts, who represents much of the Western Slope, including Eagle County, both said one of the best ways to get engaged in Colorado River issues is to get in touch with policymakers.
“If you see something bad that’s happening, or an idea you have to make something better, we’re the types of people that can work with you to make those changes,” Roberts said.
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There is so much to learn about water in local communities, from how it is treated for drinking to how engineers move it from place to place, he said.
“If you care a lot about fishing, go talk to a fishing guide or somebody that fishes along the Eagle River (or) the Colorado River, and ask them what it’s like when the water is really low or really hot and how that impacts the fish and their business,” Roberts said.
Mitchell and representatives from around the basin are negotiating new rules for how the federal government will manage key reservoirs, like lakes Mead and Powell, after 2026.
To her, managing the river is a lot like managing an allowance: When water is available, we have to use it efficiently and wisely, but when it isn’t available, we need to use less of it. That’s common sense, she said.
She said she hopes students will continue to pay attention to Colorado River issues, especially as she and the other officials decide how the river will be managed for decades into the future.
“The people who are young today are the people who will live with the consequences of any agreement,” Mitchell said. “So it’s important that these young Coloradans — young kids across the West — understand the Colorado River issues and grow up invested in our namesake river.”