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Difference Maker: Nicole Mink

MountainYouth

Updated: Jan 30

A Beacon of Light to the Next Generation 





Nicole Mink, Science and Wellness Teacher at Eagle Valley High School is a beacon of light to the next generation. Her dedication to inspire her students to take care of their minds and bodies is inspiring to witness. I have had the pleasure and privilege to be a guest mindful movement teacher in Nicole’s classes for the past two years. She deeply understands the brain body connection and how it impacts her students' stress levels and learning capacities. One of her students states, “Ms. Mink was so helpful this year in teaching us how to release stress and calm ourselves.” 

Her passion for nature and wellness all started along the waterways in Houston, Texas and her teaching path began when she was 12 years old, where she passed out printed business cards around a pool to teach swim lessons. From a young age her parents and grandmothers instilled the beauty of hard work, dedication and “not to be shy.” 

Lakes, rivers and oceans are her happy place. From rowing crew in college to coaching swimming in Austin, Texas, she fell in love with teaching and became a mentor for a program called Girlforward. Their mission is to support female refugees and help them graduate high school. 

About a decade after living in Austin, the Rocky Mountains and Colorado rivers called Nicole to mountain bike, ski, snowboard, practice and teach wellness, and our valley is so lucky to have her here! 

Nicole's favorite thing about working with youth is that it keeps her relevant in today’s culture and changing world. Working with high school students “allows for a different perspective on the ever changing of events.” She also loves to invoke curiosity and conversations with her students not just about all things science and nature, but about everything. She attributes her classroom motto to “keep asking questions even if you don’t ask them out loud,” to a really cool NASA scientist. 

The biggest challenge she sees today facing youth is cell phone dependency and the inability to interact with others has changed dramatically over the last three decades.  Nicole states, “I’m not sure if it’s the instant gratification or the easy escape from reality our phones can give us for a few hours at a time, but whatever it is, it’s hurting our community building skills.”

Nicole is the proudest for encouraging her students to have a voice. She believes student voice is one of the most “impactful and important tools that we can offer our students, not just in classes that focus on student leadership, but in every class a student has a “role and we are all impacted by each other’s voices.” She believes it is important that each student recognizes how valuable their voice is! 

Her hope for the future of youth in our community is that they can “see how much of an impact they could have, especially when they see something they want to make better.” 

Nicole expresses gratitude to Vitality (Wellness Studio in Eagle, CO) for helping her “students learn breathing tactics, how to calm the amygdala and give them skills to be successful in times of stress.” It warms my heart every time I walk into her class and witness how her students light up when they see her, how they put away their cell phones without her asking, how they show up and participate in wellness practices and share what an impact she is making in their lives in and out of the classroom. Thank you, Nicole for being a beacon to the next generation. 


-Rachel Glowacki, Mindful Movement Educator, Writer, Intervention Program Facilitator for Mountain Youth’s WE HEAR U. A Guide for Parents/Caregivers + Teens





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