By Tristan Maker, Roaring Fork High School, Carbondale, Colorado

Hello everyone, my name is Tristan Maker. For those of you who don’t know me, I am currently a senior at Roaring Fork High School located in Carbondale, Colorado, currently living out my senior year of high school through this exceedingly unique and unprecedented time in our lives. 
​
As a result of the pandemic going on, my primary plans for my year academically, athletically, and socially have dramatically changed to where I can’t accurately predict and plan out obligations a week out. However, this has provided, not only myself but all of us a true chance to appreciate life and the fruits of life in the present tense rather than troubling over the harvests and hurricanes to come in later years. Gaining the intellect and the concepts of harsh realities, such as appreciating the time stamp we currently sit in has taught me lessons about how to live my life and how actions should be made. As Marty Rubin says, “water flows because it’s willing.” You have to be willing to make things happen, willing to create change for a better future!

By: Aidan Boyd, Coal Ridge High School Student

Published 12/14/18 as Letter to Editor in Aspen Daily News
Since I was a little kid, I’ve known I wanted to study the sciences. I always pictured myself in a lab coat, silently working away until I found a cure for cancer. I never understood the often gritty, behind-the-scenes jobs required for science to be useful. My freshman year I started on a simple citizen science project with my friends, collecting basic water quality data from Elk Creek for Colorado River Watch. I never thought about how this data could be used to educate or change the world. That is, until I was put into touch with Wild Rose Education’s Sarah Johnson and learned about the Youth Water Leadership Program.