Inspiring a Love of Science

Lovely

Field Trip!

Today, I took my Conservation Biology students on a spontaneous field trip, and it was wonderful!

We were talking about invasive species, fish in particular, and when a picture of a carp popped up in my powerpoint, I remembered that a few weeks ago, Director of Landscaping Sam Youney had mentioned to me that there are some huge koi living in the campus lakes. When I told the class that there are huge fish (2 – 3 feet long, at least) in the Art and Commencement Lakes, they were skeptical . . . so I decided that we’d go on an impromptu field trip, to see if we could find them. (We were hitting the point during lecture where I usually stop to give the class a stretch break anyway, so we just took a somewhat extended stretch break). 🙂

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By Wendy, ago

2017 Science Symposium

One of my favorite annual events happened today: the annual Science Symposium on campus, part of the campus-wide Symposium of Research and Creativity. I love it for so many reasons, but mostly to see my students – dressed up in their good clothes – standing with their posters and talking about the research they performed during the past year. There’s a great energy and excitement about the event . . . to be honest, I don’t even mind the last minute flurry of crises that inevitably appear as we’re all trying to get our posters ready to be printed in time for the symposium.

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By Wendy, ago
Jessi, Caroline, Jana, and Wendy

Investiture of Dr. Judy Sakaki, Part 2

So many things have happened this week, and I have several blog posts to write (mostly about Earth Week events). I thought I’d post this one first, since I already posted Part 1, here.

I’d never attended an investiture before, and wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, other than the fact that included a ceremony to confer the “authority and symbols of high office” to the new president, in this case a medallion presented by CSU Chancellor Timothy White. It’s a tradition that’s been carried down from the middle ages, meant to signal the beginning of a new era for the university and campus community. I was certainly happy to see this taking place, as I’m really optimistic and excited about having Dr. Sakaki as our new president, especially after meeting her face-to-face, briefly, last semester. That’s a story that’s probably worth telling, especially today . . .

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By Wendy, ago

For Science!

I didn’t march today, since I was busy hosting a habitat restoration event on campus. But definitely standing in solidarity with everyone Marching for Science!

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By Wendy, ago
Mossy Logs

Investiture of Dr. Judy Sakaki, Part 1 – Morning Workshops

Today was a special day on campus, a truly historic day, when Sonoma State University held the investiture ceremony for our 7th president, Dr. Judy Sakaki. In the morning, a wide variety of mini-workshops were held, along with a poster session, to showcase the work and research of SSU students and faculty. in the afternoon, the investiture ceremony took place in the Green Music Center. It was pretty magnificent, all the way around.

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By Wendy, ago

Sampling For Benthic Macroinvertebrates

I had a great morning out on the creek yesterday, taking some Entomology students out to sample benthic macroinvertebrates in Copeland Creek. This project is a true win/win: I’m getting data for a long-term monitoring study of the creek, and the students are fulfilling a service learning requirement for their biology course.

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By Wendy, ago
Michael and Jana

Copeland Creek Work Day

After months of planning, on Saturday, March 25, a group of volunteers gathered on the Sonoma State University campus to start the “muddy boots” part of our project to restore the riparian habitat along Copeland Creek. Over the past couple of weeks, our SSU project team identified native plants that we want to keep, and today our work team pulled up invasive species around these natives, to give them the best possible chance to thrive, and to make certain they’re not accidentally pulled up during a future phase of restoration work.  (All photos © the author, except where noted).

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By Wendy St. John, ago

Evernote

One of the things I struggle with periodically (or perhaps I should say I “refine” periodically) is my organizational strategy for keeping track of things on my computer, particularly teaching materials. I’ve been using Evernote for several years (I adopted the system in November, 2010, and have been using it consistently ever since), and as soon as I started teaching, I set up a system for those materials. I thought I’d share a little bit about the ways it’s working for me, and not working.

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By Wendy St. John, ago