I had a super fun time today doing something old, and something new! For the first time, I took some of my College of Marin students on an actual off-campus field trip, and we went to a place I have visited countless times before: Sonoma State’s Fairfield Osborn Preserve. I offered this optional weekend trip to my Introduction to Biology students for extra credit, and it was a fantastic day!
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This first week of the Fall semester at College of Marin is Flex Week, when we have the opportunity to do a wide variety of professional learning activities. One of the things I did today was the “Singing Bell Metal Casting Workshop.” Yes, metal casting! This was the first time Read more
I’m thrilled to share that I have just started a new position as a Biology Professor in the department of Life and Earth Sciences at the College of Marin! My first official day on campus was fantastic, and I am so excited to be part of this vibrant, friendly, and Read more
I did a couple of very cool things today, and I thought I’d share one of them now: I attended an Advanced Sketching workshop by Rick Simonson, sponsored by the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators. (The other cool thing was the last session of the Botanical Drawing workshop, and I’ll Read more
Earlier this month, SSU graduate student Jesse Schmieg offered my Vertebrate Biology students an amazing experience: my students were hosted at Jesse’s field site, where they are researching the interactions between larval tiger salamanders and predaceous diving beetles in seasonal pools. Our main task of the day: to help Jesse set up this season’s experiment. This involved “bisecting” each vernal pools into two halves, using mesh fencing. Throughout the season, Jesse and their team of research assistants will remove predaceous beetle larvae from one half of each pool, while leaving the beetle population undisturbed in the other half. Then, they will perform monitoring to see if there is any difference in the salamander populations related to the removal of these insects.
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For one of the first Vertebrate Biology field trips this year, I took my students to the Warm Springs Fish Hatchery, where we were given a fantastic tour by Ben and David. I first came to this hatchery in 2011, when I was a student in this same class (taught back then by Derek Girman). I remember being kind of bummed by the idea of visiting a fish hatchery – I thought it would be B O R I N G – but I ended up loving it so much! Super interesting, and amazing to see the way these fish populations are being supported by the work they do there. Now, it is wonderful to be able to bring my own students here for this experience.
As Sonoma State University struggles with low enrollment, program and budget cuts, and administrative mismanagement, we were fortunate to host a legislative hearing on campus, to discuss the campus’ challenges with members of our legislature. Held on the SSU campus on February 21, our campus community was joined by U.S. Read more
This semester, I helped to organize a Steelhead Trout release into Copeland Creek on campus, as part of a program where elementary school students release trout that they had raised in the classroom.
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April 7 through May 2, 2023
My Vertebrate Biology students deployed a wildlife camera on April 7th, which I retrieved on May 20. Water was flowing in the creek throughout the entire deployment. The only unfortunate thing is that I must have set the photo resolution too high, as my 2GB memory card ran out of space on May 2. But even so, I was excited to see the variety of wildlife that we caught on the camera. This entry features just some of my favorite shots. All my wildlife camera photos (from 2016 to present) can be found on wildlifeinsights.org.
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Introducing my new favorite app: Padlet! I first encountered the app during an on-campus training – TIPS Toward Justice – and saw its potential for use in my own classes.
According to their website:
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