Mission

Fly EcoFlight’s Flight Across America program - a group of ten students engaging in intensive experiential learning across the Colorado Plateau. This year’s curriculum focused on the energy transition in the region.

From April 7-10, EcoFlight is thrilled to be hosting our 19th year of Flight Across America (FLAA) in April. FLAA is our educational program for college students, both undergraduate and graduate. This year’s theme - the Energy Transition in the West. From above, we will study landscapes, the complexities of extraction and renewable energy in the West, and social inequities related to our energy demands. 

We flew over the Little Colorado River, Black Mesa coal reclamation and proposed pumped-hydroelectric sites, the demolished San Juan Generating Station, Four Courners solar projects, Bears Ears and Hovenweep National Monuments, White Mesa uranium mill, the Grand Canyon, and Pinyon Plain mine. We landed on the ground throughout the expedition to meet experts and learn first-hand from local community members about the energy transition in their region.

The students came from a variety of academic disciplines, each motivated to participate in this program for their own personal reasons: to bridge scientific inquiry with community engagement, to uplift traditional Indigenous knowledge, to better communicate complex environmental processes, or to protect a beloved landscape. Some experienced their ancestral homelands from a new perspective. All are problem-solvers seeking solutions to the complexities of the energy transition.