Outdoor Lab Foundation

The Outdoor Education Laboratory Schools (OELS) have been enriching the lives of sixth grade and high school students in Jefferson County since 1957. Outdoor Lab’s programming is a rigorous and scaffolded experience tied to JeffCo’s overall curriculum and aims to develop stewardship of self, community, and environment. It engages all Jefferson County sixth-grade students (approximately 6,000 per year) in an immersive, residential, weeklong environmental and civic education experience. Outdoor Lab manages two historic campuses nestled in the Front Range Mountains and, throughout its impressive history, almost 400,000 students have attended the program. Mount Evans and Windy Peak Outdoor Education Laboratory Schools give students the opportunity to explore and experience subjects such as earth science, wildlife, biology, astronomy, and ecology, in a unique mountain setting. By engaging the student in problem solving, team building, decision-making and social participation, the OELS program helps to prepare Jeffco students for successful futures. The Outdoor Lab Foundation was established in 2003 as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization to ensure the preservation and continuation of the OELS program. The foundation is forging relationships with businesses, community and ono-profit organizations is support of the Outdoor Lab Schools. It is through relationships with all interest groups that the Outdoor Lab Foundation hopes to build a stronger community that will keep inspiring our youth to learn.