In the winter of 2025, the Windham Regional Commission (WRC) advised a team of three graduate students on a project focused on outdoor recreation in the Windham Region of Vermont. This project aims to conduct an outdoor recreation inventory and analysis of all the locations in the areas managed by WRC to lay the foundation for the development of a regional Outdoor Recreation Economy Plan. Using readily available data, the student team created outdoor recreation inventories for over 20 recreation types.

The student team analyzed local transportation and access issues to identify opportunities while simultaneously conducting two focused public community engagement activities. Through the lens of ecological planning, the students applied climate change forecasts and explored scenarios for climate change impacts on the outdoor recreation resources and transportation corridors by discussing how shorter winters and more frequent rain events will impact the Windham Region.