Today, I attended the beginner level Create-An-App Workshop, put on by SSU’s Women in Tech program, and it was pretty cool! We were walked through the steps of creating an app for a whack-a-mole game on an Android phone, using the MIT App Inventor. The program was pretty simple to use, and it looks like it has loads of functionality. It took me about half an hour to create my MoleMash game:
Read moreCategory: Science Education
Copeland Creek
This is the stretch of Copeland Creek running through the Sonoma State University campus, right behind the Environmental Technology Center. In nearly 10 years on campus, I’ve never seen Copeland Creek with this much water, or running so fast. It was worth giving my Conservation Biology students a quick break so we could walk down and see the creek, and take a quick video.
Scientists Increasingly Speak Out – Scientific American
“Scientists across the country are increasingly interested in communicating directly with the public, media and elected officials in the wake of President Trump’s inauguration.” Read the full article here: Scientists Increasingly Speak Out – Scientific American
What Do We Want?
Salmonid Field Trip
Restoration Ecology’s final field trip of the Fall, 2016 semester was a wonderful adventure in the redwoods, looking at restoration projects aimed at restoring habitat for salmonid fishes, including chinook and coho salmon. Our hosts for the day were Sarah Phillips of the Marin Resource Conservation Department (RCD), Erik Young, a lawyer affiliated with Trout Unlimited, and Eric Ettlinger of the Marin Water District. Each of them shared with us a different perspective on the creek, and how restoration projects happen.
We started out in the Leo T. Cronin parking area for a brief introduction, and then we headed a bit downstream of the lot for our first close-up look at Lagunitas Creek.
Read moreEnvironmental Forum
I was invited to speak as part of this year’s Environmental Forum at SSU, a lecture series put on by the Environmental Studies and Planning Department. I had a GREAT time giving this talk – I focused on the salmonid restoration that’s been done on Dutch Bill Creek near Occidental, and it went really well. The students were attentive, and asked a bunch of great questions at the end. Loved it!
Rough Day in Summer School
Poor Skelly . . .
The Art of Possibility
I had the opportunity to attend a couple of fantastic events this week sponsored by ieSonoma (Innovate, Educate, Sonoma).
On Tuesday night, I attended the keynote address: “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin Zander. He is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and he’s also an inspirational speaker who encourages a great deal of participation from his audience. Right from the start, he got us involved by inviting anyone who chose to do so to come up and sit on the stage with him. It seemed like a good idea, so my friend, Kandis, and I both decided to take him up on his offer. (You’ll see me in some of the photos below . . . I’m wearing a purple shirt). These photos were grabbed from the SSU Department of Education’s Flickr:
Read moreStudent Artwork
As the semester winds to an end, I thought I’d share some artwork . . . a couple of things I drew for my students during finals week:
Intro Bio Student Comments
This semester, one of the questions I asked on the final exam (to give them a freebie) was to ask them their favorite organism that we looked at during the course. I’m posting a few of my favorite responses here.
I found this one particularly touching:
“Thank You. You’ve actually caught my interests in science, which I never felt smart enough for. You’re also one of the most understanding and empathetic professors I’ve had, which helped with my severe anxiety disorder.”
This is so important to me. Being able to touch people’s lives in a positive way . . . well, that’s why I’m doing this. It feels really good to know that, at least some of the time, I’m hitting the mark.