When Roxanne Beltran was admitted to UC Santa Cruz, she was thrilled to finally start her college career, possibly to become a marine biologist. But the introductory biology and physics classes she was required to take almost drove her out of science. “I was suddenly in 400 person lecture halls, when my entire high school […]
Fort Ord Natural Reserve
NRS reserves adapt to coronavirus shutdown
Spring is prime time around the University of California Natural Reserve System. As winter thaws, and skies dry, scientists and students alike start migrating to the protected lands of the network’s 41 reserves. Field stations bustle with university classes on field trips, who rub shoulders with faculty and student researchers, and may intersect with buses […]
Reviving field research with living laboratories and outdoor education
By Lily Dayton for UC Santa Cruz In the spring of 1948, UCLA graduate student Ken Norris was eager to return to his field research site in the Coachella Valley, where he’d spent previous seasons crouched in the sand dunes, observing the desert iguanas that scurried beneath the Dicoria bushes. When he arrived at his research plot, […]
NRS hosts earthquake warning system sensors
A major effort to warn Californians about impending earthquakes is coming to the NRS. Scientists from UC Berkeley are installing seismometers at four reserves this fall as part of an earthquake early warning (EEW) system for the entire West Coast. Called ShakeAlert, the system will detect the first rumbles of an earthquake, predict its intensity, […]
UCSC Natural Reserves director appointed to endowed chair
by Tim Stephens, UC Santa Cruz News Office UC Santa Cruz has appointed Gage Dayton to the Wilton W. Webster Jr. Presidential Chair for the UC Santa Cruz Natural Reserves. The endowed chair was established in 2015 with a $500,000 gift from the Helen and Will Webster Foundation and matching funds from the UC Regents. […]
Two mice with one trap
A small mammal trapping protocol to let field classes inform climate science Dena Spatz, UC Santa Cruz The UC Natural Reserve System is an ideal network of sites where long-term studies can be implemented to provide an understanding of both the taxonomic groups undergoing changes with climate change and the mechanisms underlying these changes. However, there has […]
Gift funds Presidential Chair for UCSC Natural Reserves
Endowment established by Helen and Will Webster Foundation will broaden opportunities to use the natural reserves as living labs and outdoor classrooms by Tim Stephens, UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz has received a $500,000 gift from the Helen and Will Webster Foundation, plus matching funds from the UC Regents, to establish a $1 million […]
Bringing field ecology online
If outdoor learning were a religion, Erika Zavaleta would be among its foremost acolytes. A professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, Zavaleta regularly leads ecology students into the wilds of California, immersing them in the field for weeks at a time. So when the University of California joined the rush to develop online […]