The Other Side of Science: My Experience With the Youth Water Leadership Program

2018 Healthy Rivers Youth Water Summit, Speakers Aidan Boyd and Erin Flaherty. Photo by Erin Danneker, EyeDrop Design

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.

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