Science Education
Roberts Family Development Center Outreach, 2018
Once again I helped introduce a bunch of local youths to the wonders of biology, by tabling during this year’s Roberts Family Development Center visit to the SSU campus. As always, it was loads of fun . . . you can read my blog post about last year’s event for more details in general. SSU published an article about this year’s event, and I thought I’d share that here (since I didn’t remember to take any photos of my own this time around).
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Blog Post
Field Biology trip to Fairfield Osborn
March 15, 2018
The day of our Field Biology trip to the Osborn Preserve was rainy and a bit cold (but at least it didn’t snow on us, as it had when we were at Sonoma Mountain Ranch).
The day of our Field Biology trip to the Osborn Preserve was rainy and a bit cold (but at least it didn’t snow on us, as it had when we were at Sonoma Mountain Ranch). We were undaunted by the weather, though, as I had a cohort of extremely motivated (and knowledgeable) students, including some folks who had gone through the university’s Naturalist Training Program. We were ostensibly here to survey the coverboards on the property (which we did), but we spent a lot of time making more general observations. We were only there for a few hours, and it drizzled on us most of the time, but we saw loads of great stuff, across a wide variety of taxonomic groups.
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Blog Post
Newt Research at Sonoma Mountain Ranch
For our first off-campus field trip of the semester, today I took my Field Biology class up Sonoma Mountain, to the Sonoma Mountain Ranch . . . a working cattle ranch about 30 minutes’ drive from campus. A wide variety of research is being conducted at the site, about the interaction between cattle and ecosystems, and also on the wildlife that uses the preserve. Today, our visit was hosted by Daniel Hudson, an SSU graduate student who is doing research on the various species of Pacific newts.
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Blog Post
Field Biology – Learning to Identify Birds
Took my Field Biology students out for the first time on Thursday, for a field experience on campus. I’m planning to spend the first part of the semester introducing them to different taxonomic groups, and helping them develop naturalist skills – especially observation, identification, and keeping details notes in the field – and this seemed like a good way to start.
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Blog Post
Arrangement Games
Oh my . . . it’s been a while since I posted anything. I had such good intentions last semester, but never found the time to sit down and write. Over the next little while, I’m going to go back and post about cool things that happened last year, but for now, I thought I’d jump back in by moving forward with some content that is timely for the beginning of a new semester: arrangement games. This isn’t anything particularly new or groundbreaking – people have been doing these things for years – but I thought I’d do a quick round up of some of the ones that I find work particularly well.
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Blog Post
The Wildlands Will Recover
Near the start of Winter Break, I was able to tag along on a walk-through of Crane Creek Regional Park, hosted by Hattie Brown of the Sonoma County Regional Parks, and John Parodi, with Point Blue Conservation Science. The primary reason for the trip was to discuss opportunities for students Read more
Blog Post
Planting Graminoids!
Yesterday and today, we achieved a big milestone in the Copeland Creek riparian restoration project: putting in some native plants! For this first phase of planting, we started out with grasses, rushes, and sedges (collectively known as “graminoids”), all of them planted near the spot we call Snowberry Corner.
The plants were cultivated here on campus, by the Native Plant Propagation class – they provided us with more plants than we were able to get into the ground! Here they are in the greenhouse, the day before our first planting day:
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Blog Post
Maker Space: 3D Printing
Last October, a really spectacular space opened up on campus – we now have a dedicated Maker Space! Loads of equipment, including: vinyl cutter, embroidery machines, sublimation printer, oscilloscope, Arduino, soldering station, engraving machines, laser cutters, Carvey mill, and a virtual reality set up. Oh, and of course, we have 3D printers.
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Blog Post
Summer School – Day 14 and 15 – Ecosystem Services and Food Security
The penultimate day of the summer term! Compared to some of our other days, this one was pretty low key, but we did have a little unexpected adventure.
I’d intended to lecture on ecosystem services in the morning, and then watch one of my favorite “teaching” films, “Hurricane on the Bayou.” And this is mostly what happened, except for a little detour part way through. When I arrived on campus, I noticed some flyers posted in the science building – one of the biology grad students, Vanessa Dodge, was giving her thesis defense. Not only was I really interested in her research, as I’d been up to the field site in Point Reyes a couple of times, but I also thought this would be a good way for my students to learn a bit more about the process of science. So, I gave them the choice – do you want to listen to me lecture all morning? Or do you want to go hear someone else talk for a while? They voted in favor of variety, so about an hour into the day we headed upstairs to the thesis defense.
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