The Wildlife Experience, October 18, 2014

Thanks to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, we had a great day at The Wildlife Experience (TWE) in Parker, CO. First, we taught 25 educators a variety of hands-on lessons for teaching their students about bats and cave conservation.  The educators had a great time - several went through CaveSim more than once, and one educator even volunteered to be carried around in our cave rescue litter.  One educator and a TWE staff member even took the challenge of making their own map of CaveSim.  After lunch, CaveSim was available to all museum visitors at no extra charge. There were also live bat demonstrations.  Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) provided the funding that made it possible for us to bring CaveSim to this event -- CPW also does an outstanding job of working with local cavers as they do research about White Nose Syndrome.

Time-lapse video of at The Wildlife Experience.

CoolScience Carnival Day, UCCS, October 11, 2014

For the fifth year in a row, CaveSim educated hundreds of kids and adults at UCCS (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs) during the CoolScience festival.  We had great volunteers: a huge thanks to Dani, Todd, Floyd, Bekah, Slade, Kevin, and our other volunteers.  Floyd took some great pictures of the event:

Above left: Kids learning about cave formations from Dave while waiting to go through CaveSim. Above right: Visitors review their scores with the help of Dani (red shirt), one of our awesome volunteers.  Photos by Floyd Fernandez.

Above left: Visitors learned about cave formations, cave rescue gear, bats and more.  Above right: our new squeezebox lets participants safely try fitting through a tight squeeze.  Quick-release action prevents visitors from getting stuck.  Photos by Floyd Fernandez.

Above left: A cave model built several years ago by 4th and 5th graders in Catamount Institute's Young Environmental Stewards club is still in use today. It demonstrates the challenges posed by quarrying near caves.  Above right: A panoramic view of our event. Visitors waiting in line stay engaged with our many lessons and demos. Photos by Floyd Fernandez.

A time-lapse video of our event. We keep pretty busy!  Video by Dave Jackson

"A Taste of Lone Tree", Lone Tree, CO, 9/13/2014-9/14/2014

Hundreds of kids and adults learned about cave conservation by exploring the CaveSim mobile cave. Our sked, field phones and carbide lamps were a big hit with visitors too.

A girl and her dad explore CaveSim.                               A girl learns about carbide lamps from Dave.

An on-duty fireman with South Metro Fire Rescue practiced his confined space training by crawling through CaveSim. Photos: Gill Gilliland.

NSS 2014 Convention 7/14 - 7/18/2014

• More than 20 fantastic volunteers helped to run CaveSim while we were at home expecting our first baby. Thank you to everyone who helped!
• Kim Fleischmann wrote, "I had a great time volunteering for CaveSim.... we talked to the high school vice principal for a bit. I walked by later & he brought some summer students over to do the CaveSim. This was a bunch of African-American kids who might never step foot inside a cave without this introduction."
• The JSS visited CaveSim for a good portion of one day. In addition to exploring CaveSim, they learned about cave rescue, played bat games, and did other hands-on activities.
• About 250 trips were taken through CaveSim during the week. CaveSim (and our new squeezebox) was used for Speleolympics throughout the week.
• 30 individuals, grottos and vendors sponsored our trip. Each sponsor was recognized with a laminated sign on the CaveSim trailer, and with recognition on Facebook and on CaveSim.com.

Convention sponsors:

Dick Blenz (above right) continues to be our biggest sponsor, and he is helping us get to Convention again this year.  Dick is a fellow electrical engineer and caver, and his generosity is truly incredible!

    

At the 2013 NSS Convention, we borrowed an ElSpeleo light to take pictures inside of CaveSim. The results were fantastic, and we're still using those photos in our software today. ElSpeleo lights produce even better pictures than the 120V plug-in lights that we normally use for photography!

             

         

    

    

             

             

                   



 Download trip-planning slides: CaveSimToNSS2014Convention5-12-14.pptx

REACH summer program 6/17/2014 For the third consecutive year, students from the REACH summer program visited CaveSim to learn about caves, bats, geology, cave rescue and more.  We did our most extensive demo of electronic equipment yet, and the students also got to practice cave rescue using the sked (rescue stretcher).  The students will be going into a real wild cave later this week.    KidzFest, Lone Tree, Colorado 6/8/2014 CaveSim was invited to the first annual KidzFest in Lone Tree, Colorado. We had many visitors despite closing early due to severe weather.  We had great help from cavers from the Canon City High School Caving club (Sierra, Hans and Cameron), and from Dave Lester and Jeff Polk.  Thanks to Phil Blighton of PB Media for taking and sharing the images below.  Contact Phil at 303-898-6177 for your event, portrait and video needs.      Sierra helps a boy get ready for CaveSim                  Dave teaches a girl about bats   Cresson Elementary School 5/22/2014 Third through sixth graders explored CaveSim on their last day of school.  Thanks to Cresson for inviting us, and to all of the teachers and staff for their support! Kartchner Caverns Cave Fest 2/7 - 2/9/2014 Great trip to Arizona and Kartchner Caverns for the annual Cave Fest. We were there Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and 500 people went through CaveSim. A big thanks to Teresa and Chris for inviting us! Older news