Connections

What do a bright pink, fuzzy bunny, an old student ID card, and a stale Tootsie Roll have in common?  Geo-caching.  And Session 2 students sifted through the green ammo box with the enthusiasm and care of children on Christmas morning.  After the uphill hike from Highway 33, the box contents and discussion of this hobby were a welcome diversion.  One student located in the notebook names of previous OVS students who had visited this site.  Another left a message in Russian for an earlier signatory who was from Ukraine.  Later we took a moment to contemplate a memorial photo left to honor a local mountain biker who spent his last moments on this trail.

Returning to the landscape, students oriented themselves and noted the dry Ventura River stretching south in the distance like a gravel path to the ocean.  We took a moment to contemplate the watershed around us and recognize with this visual reminder that everything in the watershed drains into the Ventura River and–with the advent of rain—rushes straight to the Pacific.  After the Thanksgiving holiday we will trace this course to the sea and spend time exploring the water’s edge.

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A Grand Scale

Solar panels gleamed like platinum dominos against the hillside in the late afternoon as Session 2 Outdoor Education participants contemplated the benefit of this installation—one of the largest in Ventura County–from the “back road” above Upper Campus.

This session’s students were given a challenge to discover how the new solar panels on the hillside and roof tops at OVS will benefit the marine environment.  Accustomed to thinking of beach service as picking up trash and not polluting waterways, it took a few puzzled minutes for students to realize the far-reaching benefits of this large project.  However, by the time we returned to the water tower after our brisk walk in the bright November air,  field journals were brimming with ideas.

Gazing over OVS and across the Ojai Valley, students elaborated on the brainstorming they had done in their journals and detailed a number of ways that our consumption of energy is directly related to the ecological challenges our oceans face.  Students noted that carbon emissions from the production of electricity, and the extraction of fuels to create it, contribute to rising ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, melting of sea ice, and ocean acidification. They concluded that other sources of electricity, such as hydroelectric and nuclear, affect the ocean by reducing sediments to beaches and shorelines or by producing toxic wastes and potential catastrophes.

Students came to realize that there is no crisp boundary between marine and terrestrial environments and that what we do on the coast and across the continents has a measurable impact on the seas.  Most importantly, they agreed that the health of the ocean is inextricably tied to the survival of all life on the planet.

The solar installation is large, expensive, and…well…unattractive, but what students learned when they considered the planet’s health on a grand scale is that large problems require large solutions.  Price has to be reconsidered within the context of value—not just to oneself but to the planet and all species that inhabit it, and that beauty, in solar panels as in people, arises from what one does, not simply how one looks.

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Golden Trout Wilderness

Guest written by Jack Beverly, Class of 2013

This past week, my outdoor education group and I went on an excursion to the Eastern Side of the Sierras.

We backpacked into the Cottonwood Lakes, as well as another lake with a name that should probably not be repeated on this blog.

Upon reaching our final camping spot (South Fork Lakes), we were all astounded by  the scenery and view that the lake had to offer. The campsite was positioned right next to a beautiful lake with Golden Trout swimming around peacefully, deer hanging out with their newborns, and some noisy coots.

To top it off, a short hike over a hill would lead to this…

We all got up early in the morning to see the sunrise on our first night there. The view was alright.

The highlight of the trip for me was backpacking past an old cabin that was used in the 19th century for either fur trappers or something along those lines. It stood out to me because I was reading a book about the (in)famous Kit Carson, one of America’s greatest mountain men and fur trappers. The cabin stood about four feet tall and was right next to a small river with plenty of California’s state fish.

On our trip, we went in as a group of four students that never really hung out together, or talked to each other much, but by the end of the trip weknew each other even better than any of us expected.

Strangely enough, our “sport” ends early. We are all going to have to join some other sport that, to me, will not be nearly as fulfilling.There’s something about the back-country that cannot be replicated anywhere else. It is unique to each person that experiences it,and will continue to be for as long as it’s there. My advice? Go see it quickly.

Jack Beverly October 15, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Play

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. 

                                                                                                                                                —Plato

What began as an exploration of the restored wetland at the Ojai Meadow Preserve transitioned into an afternoon of play, climbing oaks and enjoying the robust breeze flowing across the saddle from Mira Monte on this toasty fall afternoon.

What Is Your Bearing?

What do outdoor education and geometry have in common?  Angles!  After general orientation with map and compass last week, students got a little friendlier with the compass.  Learning to take bearings from the landscape and apply those to map, or to take a bearing from the map and use it to navigate the landscape, students practiced the language and skills of navigating.  For Wednesday, each student designed a course around campus with several legs that had to be completed before finding a prize at the end.  The game provided fun practice for new skills that will be put to practical use on our trip in the eastern Sierra the first week of October, and it helped us discover the “Bermuda Triangle” on campus where compasses act goofy.

Coastal Clean-Up Day

One benefit of thinking in terms of watershed is the awareness that cleaning up the ocean really means cleaning up everywhere.  In preparation for Coastal Clean-up Day students explored the many ways that litter and pollutants make their way to the ocean.  With our campus bordering the seasonal Wilsie Creek, it was easy to see how anything we put in the air or on the ground here will make its way into the creek and, ultimately, into the ocean.  We discussed the historic management of our stables adjacent to the creek and the improvements OVS has made in managing manure and other waste from that facility in recent years.

For our participation in this year’s event, sponsored by the California Coastal Commission,  we headed to Santa Barbara.  Working in conjunction with Channel Islands Restoration (CIR) we participated in a project on the grounds of the Santa Barbara Zoo.   Zoo staff led us in through the service entrance, creating an opportunity to see some of the animals from a perspective unavailable to the general public.  The gibbons’ were particularly active in the morning sun and entertained us with their eerie howls and impressive acrobatics.

Getting to work, we dug up and pulled invasive myoporum, cape ivy, nasturtium, and palm re-growth from an area along the shore of the slough.  Reestablishing and maintaining a diverse habit of native plants is essential to ensure adequate food, as well as nesting and roosting sites, for the many species of birds that live in and visit this lovely seaside area.  CIR hopes that with continued funding and help from its many volunteers—like OVS—it can continue the restoration project farther around the shoreline.

Unfortunately, students learned that the slough is subject to other threats besides invasive plants.  Access to an important source of water higher up in the watershed has been cut off, creating anaerobic (oxygen starved) conditions.  Conservationists and zoo staff are looking for ways to aerate and circulate the water to guarantee this healthy habit remains for the next generations of birds and people.

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Watershed as Metaphor

Understanding watershed requires looking at the big picture.  On the landscape, as in life, all tributaries are connected in a great closed cycle—each contribution eventually inseparable from the whole.  Yet we become trained to look at the world as it affects us personally and locally.  The challenge of growing a conservation ethic is learning to see relationship.   A great way to study this is by looking at watershed.  First session Outdoor Education has been doing just that.  Equipped with topographic maps, satellite images, and compasses, students have been learning to read the land and discover the boundaries of our watershed.

A day hike up Cozy Dell Trail on a blistering hot afternoon gave students a chance to look at the Ventura River from above as it makes its way southward against the west edge of the Ojai Valley.  Crossing the drainage at the base of the trail we snacked on sweet seeds from the invasive fennel plant.  Farther on, native oaks and tall chaparral provided some spots of welcome shade.  The chaparral mallow was still tipped with pale lavender blooms shaped like frail paper bowls.  As we reached the top of the switchbacks the view opened before us, and our perch on the foothills provided a sweeping illustration of how landscape contains and directs the flow of water toward the Pacific in our region.

We hiked on to Cozy Dell Canyon where we rested and snacked in the shade. Students practiced orienting maps and using visual resources to estimate other locations as well.  The temperature was still oppressive by the time we hiked out, but luckily the route was briskly downhill and the van was air-conditioned!