These posts were written by students in my Restoration Ecology course at Sonoma State University.
By Raquel Guevara-Bolaños: On a crisp Friday morning, the students of Restoration Ecology from Sonoma State packed up and drove out to the Laguna de Santa Rosa foundation in Occidental. Our group was led by Brent Reed who is the Ecological Program Manager at the foundation and Paul Weber who Read more
By Audrey Glazier: One dark, cloudy day in November, my Restoration Ecology class was joined by students in another ecology class to attend an educational field trip with the Laguna Foundation. The goal was to learn about the Foundation’s restoration efforts along the Laguna de Santa Rosa, and also gain Read more
By Krissa Klein: Sonoma State University has two ponds on the north side of campus, not far from Copeland Creek. These ponds were originally meant for fire suppression, and are thus in ecologically poor shape. The water is an unappealing brownish color, with scum and litter floating on the surface. Read more
By David Wentworth: During our visit to Lagunitas creek, we were shown many different structures that had been created around and in the creek to better improve the health of its inhabitants. These man-made structures were created from a combination of natural materials (mainly wood) held together by rebar. The Read more
By Cindy Tanaka: Lagunitas Creek is a home for many species of salmon and for a rare species of shrimp. In the past, the morphology of the creek was changed due to agriculture to increase the farmland area. Not only was the morphology changed but there was a dam installed Read more
By Audrey Zitnay: On Friday, October 6th our Restoration Ecology class had the opportunity to travel to the Lagunitas Creek arranged by our professor Wendy St. John. Lagunitas Creek is a 20 mile creek located in Marin County that flows through Mt. Tamalpais area and eventually enters the Pacific Ocean Read more
By Makayla Freed: On Friday, September 1st, Professor Wendy St. John took the Restoration Ecology class for a walk up part of Copeland Creek, where previous Restoration Ecology students had both proposed and implemented a restoration plan. Our mission for the day was to get a better grasp of Copeland Read more
By Heather Kelly-Cavanaugh: Our first lab session, on September 1st, consisted of our entire class going out to Copeland Creek with professor Wendy St John. It runs through the back of Sonoma State University, which surprisingly not many students know it even exists. As we walked up and down the Read more
By Amy Unruh: After weeks of logistical issues, we were finally able to get ahold of the Sherman traps from the biology department that we would be using to capture and analyze the small mammals along Copeland Creek. With the guidance of Biology professor Wendy St. John, we set out Read more
By Manuel Hernandez and Julianne Bradbury: Most problems are relative, right? In an urban creek like Copeland Creek, certain species are bigger problems than others. The Restoration Ecology class at Sonoma State has detected a whole spectrum of problem species living in and around the creek that might not be Read more