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Restoration and Preservation

Date: 
March, 8 2010 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Date: 
March, 13 2010 9:00am - 3:00pm
Location Address (City, State, Zip): 
Arastradero Preserve, Palo Alto CA
Contact: 
Judy Cronin
(650)938-2300 x12
info@exploringsenseofplace.org

Exploring a Sense of Place Year-long Course
This is part of a 12 month course and each monthly exploration is complete by itself and has its own theme. March's theme is Restoration and Preservation. Join us for our Monday enrichment evening on March 8th, and a Saturday exploration at Arastradero Preserve in Palo Alto.

Enrichment Evening: Monday, March 8, 7 to 9 PM at Conexions
We will have two speakers this evening. Paul Heiple will talk about “The Impacts of Land Use on the Arastradero Preserve and the Benefits of Good Land Use from the Beginning”. Franklin Olmsted will give us a brief account of volunteer restoration efforts by Friends of Foothills Park and California Native Plant Society at Foothills Park from 1996 to 2009. 

Exploration Day: Saturday, March 13, 2010, 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Arastradero Preserve is a beautiful mixture of rolling savanna grassland and broad leaf evergreen forest. It varies in elevation from 275 feet in the northeast to 775 feet in the southwest. Wildlife abounds on the preserve and it is not uncommon to see deer, bobcats, coyotes, and many varieties of birds. 

In the morning we will be joined by Franklin as we go for a walk though the Preserve. We should see serpentine soil, the Arastradero Lake, riparian areas, oak woodland and grasslands. We will see many native and non-native plants. 

We will stop an enjoy lunch where the Acorn and Meadowlark Trails meet.   It is a vista point that on clear days offers lovely views. 

Then we will join Paul and see some of the restoration projects in the field.  We will finish up the day with a hands-on project to help in the restoration of Arastradero Preserve.

Cost
$50 Regular
$45 Conexions Member - Become a Member

About the Instructor/Speaker: 

Paul Heiple is the Botanist for Arastradero Preserve which is under the stewardship of Acterra. He currently lives in Portola Valley where he is the Chair of the Conservation Committee that is working with the San Francisquito Watershed Council, on creek restoration and removal of non-native invasive plants within the creek. Paul’s love for nature includes: rock formation, flora, fauna and insects. Even though Paul is a Geologist by training he has been interested in plants for as long as he can remember. Paul is well known within the Mid–Peninsula environmental community and we are honored to have him as a guest tonight.

Franklin Olmstead, along with his wife Jean, has been an active member of the Friends of Foothills Park since the early 1990s.  He has a strong interest in native plants and a vast knowledge of the flora at Foothills Park, which is self-taught. Before his retirement, he worked as a geologist with the USGS for over 40 years in many parts of the US.  Franklin received his undergraduate degree from Pomona College, and after serving in WWII, completed his PhD in Geology at Bryn Mawr.