Combine the words “gold” and “California” and you automatically come up with the Gold Rush, don’t you? After all, California is the Golden State. And while that nickname may be to honor the golden hills of summer or the poppies that are the state flower, it may also be a tribute to the discovery of…
Tag: field trip
Winter wildlife
The spring semester started this week, which means that every Friday I’ll be taking my Ecology students on field trips. Yesterday’s field trip, the first of the class, was to Rancho del Oso and Waddell Beach. Every year I’ve taken the students to these sites to visit two different habitats: forest and beach. And all…
Playing in the sand, for science
This semester I am teaching a lab for a General Biology course for non-majors. I polled my students on the first day of lab, and their academic plans are quite varied: several want to major in psychology (always a popular major), some want to go into business, a few said they hope to go into…
Blitzing an old military base
This weekend a subset of my students and I spent a day at the Fort Ord Natural Reserve (FONR) to participate in the 2018 spring Bioblitz. We were supposed to visit FONR for a class field trip in early March to do some vegetation studies, but that trip was rained out. Today’s visit was sort…
Saving a species
How does a group of people go about trying to save a federally endangered species? The answer, of course, depends on the species. However, you can bet your bottom dollar that it takes a tremendous effort over many years by many dedicated and talented people, all of whom know that in the end their work…
Students begin observing succession
This week’s field trip for my Ecology class was the first of two visits to the Santa Cruz harbor. The students’ task was to select a site to monitor for a semester-long study of ecological succession. The floating docks at the harbor are the ideal site for this kind of study because I know from…
The oldest and most powerful skill of all
For as long as sentient humans have walked across the surface of the planet, they have observed the world around them. Quite often these observations had direct life-or-death consequences, as most of survival had to do with finding food while not becoming someone else’s dinner. Fast forward a few million years and we find ourselves…
Gettin’ down and dirty
This year I’m teaching Ecology for the second time. It is a field-intensive course: we have all day on Fridays to meet outside the classroom and do something outdoors. Most people understand that hands-on experiences are the best way to learn, whether the subject matter is field-based or computer-based (such as working with software for statistical…
Let there be . . . fish!
Today my students and I visited the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project hatchery, to learn about local efforts to save the federally endangered coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). The coho is one of five species of Pacific salmon found on the coast of North America, the other four being the Chinook (O. tshawytscha), the chum (O….