Why working at WGA is the best way to see Denver

Two Words: Field Trips.

With all intensives 2 field trips are generally scheduled per week in order to allow the kiddos to get out of the classroom and really see the field that they are interested in. So due to this, I have gotten to see a lot of Denver and the surrounding area. This blog post is dedicated to that.

Cool places I’ve seen in Denver thanks to DPS.

NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab):

We got to go both to the NREL facility as well as to the NREL wind turbine testing center which is very beautiful and very top secret. At the wind turbine testing center, ex NFL Panther’s (yes the kids made fun of me for about an hour after I told them I was a Panthers fan) football player Sean Tufts talked to us about energy. After hearing about wind turbines we headed to NRELs main campus. At NREL the kids got to do experiments and learn about renewable energy. The place was actually really cool looking and the welcome center was really cool.

Colorado State University:

CSU was quite a hike from WGA… about an hour and a half to be exact. But, I had never been to Fort Collins so I looked forward to seeing it. The campus was pretty big and it was like any other college campus I’ve ever been to… really pretty. Green grass and big buildings. We got a tour of the engineering department led by same gendered tour guides which was neat. All the labs were super cool and they were doing a lot of awesome experiments and designs. For a brief moment I had the desire to become an engineer, then they went over the course catalog and I quickly remembered why that was never on the radar.

Hat Creek Energy:

We went here to learn about oil. The most impressive thing about the whole thing though was the building this business is located which was beautiful and also the awesome collection of bronze art work including one by Remington. All the bronze in the collection were old west in theme. It was really quite an impressive collection. So we got to learn about art, engineering, and the Gates Family (no, not THAT Gates family).  Oh, and they bought us pizza.  All in all it was a good day.

University of Colorado – Boulder:

Boulder is one of my favorite places I’ve visited yet during my AmeriYear, so obviously I was stoked about going again and seeing CU Boulder. The campus was absolutely beautiful and there was a lot going on. It made me miss college a lot. We introduced the kids to the perks of college including: tons of free stuff, free on campus art museum, and the world of promotional awesomeness. During our day at CU Boulder there just happened to be every middle school boys dream on campus: beautiful girls selling Play Station as a brand. These girls led us back into what was probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen. A small concert hall full of play stations. The kids went nuts. After all that excitement we actually had places to go, including a tour of the engineering department. This engineering department was even cooler than CSU’s. They had all sorts of little interactive and experiments to play with. It was a lot of fun.

JUMP STREET:

 

So my kids earned all their classroom points and we got to go to jumpstreet. Jumpstreet is this really awesome place with tons of trampolines where you can jump around. They also have a dodgeball court with trampolines where you can throw dodgeballs at your students heads. While this wasn’t the most educational of trips, I have been wanting to go to jump street since I first came to Denver, so it was kind of a dream come true!