Tahoe Expedition Academy Mindfulness in Art
In 2022, Tahoe Expedition Academy (TEA) middle schoolers and high schoolers came to the Roundhouse for a week-long ”Mindfulness in Art” Intensive course. The students worked with expert artists to learn skills in Textiles and Ceramics. Students created mugs, bowls, and luminaries in the Ceramics Shop and custom-designed totes, lavender-filled eye pillows, and scrunchies in the Textiles Shop.
Our programs give students the self-confidence to use new tools and technology while also teaching self-reliance, resourcefulness, and creative problem-solving. Beyond learning design, our programs instill a belief that if you can dream it, you can make it, and the world can be modified, adapted, repaired, and reclaimed.
Tahoe Expedition Academy is a coeducational Pre-K-12 school located on 42-acres in Truckee, California, minutes away from beautiful Lake Tahoe. TEA is fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and was created ten years ago to change the face of education and harness the infinite power of the next generation of problem solvers.
Fixit Clinics
The Roundhouse and Keep Truckee Green have partnered since 2018 to promote sustainability in our community.
We host two Community FixIt Clinics each year together. These events are free for all — the community brings broken household and electronic items for our expert volunteer fixers to help repair rather than replace, saving money and serving to keep waste out of our landfills. Our volunteer FixIt Experts help community members learn new skills while fixing items and reducing waste.
Repair is a sustainable act that encourages reusing resources rather than purchasing new ones. Our events have repaired items like toaster ovens, wooden chairs, lamps, puffy jackets, denim jeans, and more. While not all items are always repairable, participants always leave with valuable repair skills.
Keep Truckee Green is the Town of Truckee’s sustainability, solid waste, and resiliency program. They coordinate the planning and implementation of our Town’s waste reduction and climate change actions. In partnership with our community, they foster culture to proactively address climate change and lead by example.
The Keep Truckee Green team is guided by an interdisciplinary Sustainability Committee, which includes staff from all Town divisions.
Tahoe Ability Program (TAP)
In the fall of 2021, Truckee Roundhouse launched a new program in Textiles and Ceramics with Tahoe Ability Program (TAP, formerly operated as CHOICES). The goal of the program is to train the members and aides of TAP so they can use the space independently to work on their own projects during Roundhouse member hours. The partnership supports TAP's mission to create community inclusion, foster independence, and promote progress for people with developmental disabilities within their community.
The Roundhouse actively designs and funds programs like this to serve those who might otherwise lack access to these kinds of opportunities or face great personal challenges. We are inspired by this partnership with TAP and plan to build on this program’s success.
Tahoe Ability Program is designed to create community inclusion, foster independence and promote progress for people with developmental disabilities within their community. Tahoe Ability Program strives to encourage self-advancement and assistance in reaching individualized goals. They maximize the time spent within the local community to increase interactions between our participants and other community members to enhance networking and relationship building.
First Tuesday for Planet Earth; a partnership with SWEP and Keep Truckee Green
In 2019, we launched First Tuesdays for Planet Earth, a series of donation-based and public hands-on-making events. The events were designed to reduce the dependency on single-use plastic and raise awareness of the impact small positive actions can have on Planet Earth.
Workshops included reusable grocery bags, beeswax, and cotton covers (to replace using saran wrap), plastic bag drying racks, glass/metal straw carriers, etc.
These events are a meaningful partnership between Keep Truckee Green, Truckee Roundhouse, and Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships to support a greener Truckee Tahoe.
Keep Truckee Green is the Town of Truckee’s sustainability, solid waste, and resiliency program. They coordinate the planning and implementation of our Town’s waste reduction and climate change actions. In partnership with our community, they foster culture to proactively address climate change and lead by example.
The Keep Truckee Green team is guided by an interdisciplinary Sustainability Committee, which includes staff from all Town divisions.
Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP) is a small, community-oriented non-profit organization based within the Tahoe Truckee Region. They started in 1994 as a small group of parents and teachers interested in providing comprehensive science & environmental education to local students that connect them to their neighborhood creeks and forests.
Boy Scout Troop 267
In October 2018, the Roundhouse hosted local Boy Scout Troop 267. The scouts learned to use the welder, CNC Plasma, and wood laser to restore the Lincoln Highway marker, which is on display at the Donner State Park Museum. The original marker was one of 2,437 erected across the country by Boy Scouts in 1928. It was an honor to partner with the Troop and Sierra State Parks Foundation.
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) provides the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training, which helps young people be “Prepared. For Life.®” The Scouting organization is composed of more than 1 million youth members between the ages of 5 and 21 and more than 628,000 volunteers in local councils throughout the United States and its territories.
Boy Scout Troop 267 is a Truckee North Tahoe Troop that practices the "boy-led" philosophy – the Scouts take responsibility for planning meetings, activities, and outings. The Scouts are assisted by the Scoutmaster, Assistant Scoutmasters (trained adult leaders), Patrol Leaders, and Merit Badge Counselors, who all offer guidance and teach skills. The Troop Committee consists of parent volunteers who meet monthly to handle troop administration and support leaders in delivering quality programming.
Sierra Expeditionary Learning School
Truckee Roundhouse has partnered with Sierra Expeditionary Learning School (SELS) to work on creative projects that make a difference in the world.
In 2018, a group of 21 eighth graders learned tool usage and techniques to fabricate butcher blocks, picture frames, ceramic mugs, and wooden coasters that they sold to raise funds for an African village water system.
In 2019, 23 sixth graders came together to create a year-end school public art piece about climate change. Students learned how to use wood shop tools, metal shop tools, CNC plasma and laser wood engraver to create a multi-medium art piece.
Sierra Expeditionary Learning School (SELS) is a K-8 tuition-free public charter within the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District. SELS inspires a diverse group of learners to achieve academic excellence and develop a strong sense of character and community. Curriculum is implemented through project-based expeditions and fieldwork that challenge students to think critically while also fostering their natural curiosity and love of learning.