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Each week, we talk with our colleagues at ‘The Colorado Sun’ about the stories they’re following. This time, Sun Reporter Michael Booth joined us to discuss a record-setting ski season last winter and the state of computers in Colorado’s public schools.
Ski resorts across the U.S. received a record number of visits last season at 67.4 million visits, surpassing the previous season’s record. Ski areas in the Rocky Mountain Region also hit a record of 27.9 million visits in the 2022-2023 season.
Booth said much of the heightened demand for a go at the slopes is due to unusually high levels of snowfall last winter.
“If you have good snow, you have a lot of skiers,” Booth said.
Still, ski resorts face challenges attracting diverse visitors to the slopes.
“They’re often using public lands, and they have to figure out ways to price the tickets in a way that you can get more people up there who might not otherwise be able to enjoy it economically,” Booth said.
The number of individuals who went skiing at resorts across the U.S. rose to 10.7 million in the 2021-2022 season, meaning more people went skiing at least once than in seasons past. Booth said that uptick in individual visitors has resorts hopeful that more people are trying out the wintertime sport.
“Even though they’re pricing passes in a way that tries to get people to come back frequently, they’re also continuing to attract new skiers and first-time skiers,” Booth said.
In another story, the relatively affordable Chromebooks many public schools bought during the pandemic to aid with remote learning are now nearing their “death dates,” meaning they’ll no longer be functional due to outdated software.
“Colorado schools went along with the trend of Google selling Chromebooks made by itself and by its partners,” Booth said of schools’ pandemic-era computer purchases. “[They] were basically an internet connection with a platform for some apps that were learning-based apps.”
Although the pandemic has since ended, Booth said the Chromebooks have become a vital part of the day-to-day school routine for many students and teachers.
“Schools have found them an essential way to…help the teachers keep track of what the students are doing and help them advance,” Booth said. “They’re here to stay.”
The Chromebooks’ planned obsolescence, with computer expiration dates expected as soon as 2025, could mean large costs for school districts statewide–and a recycling crisis.
“Recycling groups are trying to say, if we’re going to try to avoid a recycling disaster in starting about 2025 when most of them come due, we need to find a way for Google and others to extend the life of the Chromebooks that [schools] already got,” Booth said.
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