High school students finish Project GROW work at Bouverie Preserve

Sonoma Valley High School’s students returned to the Bouverie Preserve this month to work as biologists, thus completing their role in the Bouverie Preserve’s Project Gathering to Restore Oak Woodlands.
The group of students converged at the preserve for a workday held on April 9. The preserve is part of the Audubon Canyon Ranch, a leader in conservation science, habitat protection and restoration, and hands-on environmental education programs.
Continuing their work with conservation science mentors, the students were trained as biologists and conducted field assessments and evaluated maintenance requirements for Project Gathering to Restore Oak Woodlands. Using habitat-monitoring worksheets for recording observations, students determined whether seedlings had emerged, the amount of seedling growth and the status of the irrigation drip lines, as well as gauged weed management needs.
The information gathered by the students will be used to track long-term project success and prioritize future restoration needs, including irrigation repairs, replacement plantings and weed control.
Since the project began in December 2009, Sonoma Valley High School’s students enrolled in the Center for Land-Based Learning’s Student and Landowner Education and Watershed Stewardship program have participated in three oak woodland restoration field days at Bouverie Preserve, assisted in planting more than 400 hand-gathered acorns, established GPS mapping of the restoration areas, and created and installed irrigation systems for two restoration sites at Bouverie Preserve.
Project Gathering to Restore Oak Woodlands is a unique partnership between Audubon Canyon Ranch, the Southern Sonoma County Resource Conservation District, and the Center for Land-Based Learning’s Student and Landowner Education and Watershed Stewardship Program to restore eight acres of oak woodlands at Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen. Project Gathering to Restore Oak Woodlands was made possible through funding by the California Department of Transportation to mitigate the loss of 117 oak trees during construction of widening and safety work on Highway 12 in Glen Ellen. Mitigation for the loss of oak trees is required by state law.