During the summer months, Exploring a Sense of Place will be exploring the San Francisquito Watershed in July and in August we will experience our place in the Universe. Come and share these wonderful experiences with us and deepen your connection with the local environment.
Walk a riparian wildlife corridor
In July, we will gather for our Enrichment evening on Monday, July 6th with Naturalist Ryan Navratil, who has been the Field Coordinator with the San Francisquito Creek Watershed Council and works with research projects at Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. His slide presentation, “The San Francisquito Watershed: Natural Resources in Urban Landscapes” takes us on a pictorial journey of the rich riparian wildlife corridor of the creek. On Saturday, July 11th, we will be guided along the creek and down into the creek bed by Jerry Hearn, an upper school teacher at Peninsula School. who serves on the Board of Acterra and was its first President. He was instrumental in the formation of the San Francisquito Watershed Council as well as the development for the implementation of the Stanford Fish Ladder on the upper creek. He was appointed Chairperson of the San Mateo Fish and Game Advisory Board for wild land resources. With him, we will explore the creek as a riparian community, experience walking in a wildlife corridor, learn the extremes of rainfall and how this effects the stream and it’s plant and animal life, and see how when the creek seems to disappear, it is has not dried up rather is now flowing underground. We will witness some of the issues around preservation and restoration in an urban setting.
Reading the Night Sky, Our place in the Universe
August is one of our most spectacular explorations. We begin late in the afternoon at Russian Ridge walking along the trail leading to the summit of Borel Hill, along the way experiencing the magnificence of a beautiful Oak Woodland. Our awesome guide for the evening is Joe Jordan, who has dedicated his life to astronomical research, science education and innovative ways of generating energy. He studied Physics at Oberlin College and received his Masters Degree in Oceanography from UC Santa Cruz. He has worked for NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View for over two decades working on the Hubble Space Telescope, SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), Computerized Analysis for Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change.
At the top of Borel Hill, we will enjoy our picnic dinner together as the Earth revolves away from the warmth of our solar star, the Sun and during the next several hours, Joe will orient us, as early people always did, to our place in the Cosmos by reading the night sky and the summer constellations. We will experience the amazing movement of our Earth revolving in Space, meteor showers, the moon and stars as well as another galaxy. The ancient people always said that “humans are cosmological beings” and as we head down the hill with the moon and stars overhead, we truly feel that we are indeed cosmological beings. Our dreams that night are destined to be very full.
About the author
Karen Harwell is the Program Director for Conexions Exploring a Sense of Place.
Exploring a Sense of Place, is a year-round program that deepens the participant’s connection to the natural world. For more information, please visit our program.
