THE OAKS Outdoor Education blog

Preparing for ACSI Convention 2008

I have a reserved booth #512 and excited to attend ACSI Southern California Convention next month–November 24-25 in Anaheim.  As Steve and I are preparing materials, and getting excited to reconnect with the schools, teachers and peers at other Christian camps I’ve also been considering where our program has come in the last ten years.

I’m excited to share with the camps that are attending this year where we are renewing our vision and mission, and where we feel God is leading us.  We continue to be commited to providing excellent facilities and effective programs for the purpose of students experiencing God’s creation up here at THE OAKS, surrounded by the beauty of His creation, all for the purpose of worshipping the Creator!

Ecological Economics

Last week I heard one of my favorite economist Thomas L. Friedman was going to come out with a new book this month.  In college I remember my assignment in Global Political Economy to read the New York Times, especially the Op-Ed Section, for a whole semester and write commentary papers on it each week.  Thomas Friedman was a particular writer, along with Nicholas Kristof, that stuck out to me.  The last few months I’ve been working my way through his book The World is Flat.

So in a great synthesis of where I was in college, and where I’m at now, Thomas Friedman’s latest book addresses both global economics and geopolitical ecology in Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America.

I just watched a video of Thomas Friedman addressing the issues in his book here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m26UDCME5JTRS2:m1NWHCLFG6SZQJ

It’s excellent content!

Walking and Identifying

I went on a great walk along the perimeter of our property the other day.  I spotted a few things I had not identified before: a few Lark Sparrows, a pink fussy oak gall, a rabbit warren that seemed to be developing on our NW Loop trail plateau, an abundance of grapes in a scat pile, and a crazy black-iridescent wasp with large orange wings that I have yet to identify.

I’m amazed at how many species are in residence around our property, even when not seen all the time.  I’m also scheming as to what new trail enhancements and additions I can bring to the trail system in the next year.  I’ll be posting some ideas shortly, for now stay tuned to our Trails Page online.

One morning I found a family of California Quail drinking from our backyard cement slab.  It’s a family that’s been hanging around our apartments quite a bit lately, and we’ve been able to see the little chicks during their development.

Local Species Database

I have begun to compile a database of information for local plants and animals around THE OAKS. This is something very exciting for me to put in place, because it allows me to put online what I’ve been working on at my desk for the last year.

It started with a trail guide we have had for awhile at camp that I knew needed updating, but that would also be a good education for me to be the one to revise it and add to it. So I began by restocking my resource bookshelf with some excellent resources. Then I began finding citations for the plant species we already had listed in the books I was collecting, and then making revisions and additions to that primary list. From there I began adding more and more species to the list.

Since I had been exploring and learning a lot through running the camp website I began thinking what I could do with this list if it were online. I would love a way to put a LOT of information into each species record, and then be able to search, tag and add notes to each one. Those would be advantages over just a paper-copy list. Well, I started on that at the end of last year, and just in the last month I’ve had breakthroughs that have allowed me to make those functionalities work and make it work making live online. Much thanks to Brad for his help on this. I debated whether or not to make an intensive effort to photograph all the local plants and tree to add to this database I was creating, but came to the conclusion that I would leave that for later, and not base this project around it. Since then I’ve found great sites online that already carry photos that I could create specialized links from each species to pull up. So I went in that direction.

So now the result of these efforts is posted on this blog, on the right column I have a link to the Local Flora Species, and Local Fauna Species. It is still a work in progress and I edit and add more entries. There are still some more ideas and directions to go with this. One idea is to integrate it with another online species database, such as the Encyclopedia of Life, iSpecies, eFloras, or Calflora’s What Grows Here project.

Resources used so far in cataloging local species:

Alden, Peter and Fred Heath. National Audubon Society Field Guide to California. New York, NY: Knopf, 1998.
Balls, Edward K. Early Uses of California Plants. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1962.
Barbour, Michael G., Todd Keeler-Wolf, Allan A. Schoenherr. Eds. Terrestrial Vegetation of California, 3rd Ed. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2007.
Belzer , Thomas J. Roadside Plants of Southern California. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press,1984.
Clarke, Charlotte Bringle. Edible and Useful Plants of California. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1977.
Collins, Barbara J. Key to Coastal and Chaparral Flowering Plants. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1987.
Dole, Jim W. and Betty B. Rose. Shrubs and Trees of the Southern California Chaparral & Mountains. North Hills, CA: Footloose Press, 1996.
Dole, Jim W. and Betty B. Rose. Shrubs and Trees of the Southern California Deserts. North Hills, CA: Footloose Press, 1996.
Elpel, Thomas J. Botany in a Day. Pony, MT: HOPS Press, 2006.
Fross, David and Dieter Wilken. Ceanothus. Portland: OR: Timber Press, 2006.
Harrington, H.D. Western Edible Wild Plants. Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico Press, 1972.
Harris, James G., Melinda Woolf Harris. Plant Identification Terminology. Spring Lake, UT: Spring Lake Publishing, 1999.
Lanner, Ronald M. Conifers of California. Los Olivos, CA : Cachuma Press, 2007.
Munz, Philip A. Introduction of California Desert Wildflowers. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2004.
Munz, Philip A. A Flora of Southern California. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1974.
Ornduff, Robert, Phyllis M. Faber and Todd Keeler-Wolf. Introduction to California Plant Life. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2003.
Pavlik, Bruce M., Pamela C. Muik, Sharon G. Johnson and Majorie Popper. Oaks of California. Los Olivos, CA: Cachuma Press, 1995.
Quinn, Ronald D. and Sterling C. Keeley. Introduction to California Chaparral. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2006.
Schmidt, Majorie G. Growing California Native Plants. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1980.
Stewart, Jon Mark. Mojave Desert Wildflowers. Albuquerque, NM: Jon Stewart Photography, 1998.
Stuart, John D.and& John O. Sawyer. Trees & Shrubs of California. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2001.
Wiltens, James. Edible and Poisonous Plants of Northern California. Berkely, CA: Wilderness Press, 1999.

Spring Blooms and Rain

The chamise and yucca blooms have finally reached 4000′ elevation, so we are enjoying the brighter color in the hills all around us.

We also received a wonderful drenching of rain this morning!

Animal Spottings

During an Outdoor Education hike along the Lower to Upper Shake trail today we came across fresh bear tracks, and a pair of Spotted Owls roosting in the tree throughout the day.

It was a special sight to see!

Spring Outdoor Education

The Outdoor Education is here, with beautiful weather, and exciting weeks ahead.  The weather has started wonderfully for us, we’ve had the warmest days so far.  We’re disappointed Jupiter isn’t showing its face for the next few seasons, but Saturn, Mars, Orion’s Nebula and the Pleades are all great astronomical sights to enjoy and show students.

Biophilia- Cherishing Life on Earth

In the last month I read through E.O. Wilson’s book The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.  E.O. Wilson is a renowned American biologist, specializing in ant studies.  He declares himself in the book to be a secular humanist and frames the book as a letter written to the Southern Baptist Pastor.  He puts forth the argument in his book that the two most powerful social forces on Earth, namely religion and science, ought to and must join forces to abate the destruction of the world’s ecology and rapidly disappearing species.  He describes historical and evolutionary means in which “Nature” protects and regenerates itself, but that the onslaught by humans on the earth has been atrocious and incomparable to anything but the other half-dozen cataclysmic events that have happened in the last few hundreds of millions of years.  He really defines our destruction as something inherent in the human way of life, supposedly since humans stopped being hunter-gatherers.  Another big point he bought up, the one that has given me the most reason for reflection lately, has been his definition of Evangelical doctrine centered around “last days theology” that has encouraged many to forsake consideration of the world around them and care for it.

I would hope that our efforts in outdoor education and camping ministry reflect a responsible Christian ethic of stewardship and level perspective of our honor to God’s creation.  Our motto for THE OAKS Outdoor Education program is “Experiencing Creation, Worshiping the Creator.”  In our activities, teaching, devotions, solo times and exploration of the world outside and around us I would be very pleased to see students develop a better concept of what creation is, and our place in it.

Idolatry is anything that becomes central to our lives, and also something that can easily sneak in and entangle us. Romans 1:25 says “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”  As we pursue a responsible approach of stewardship toward the awesome creation around us, I hope our direction becomes one in which we develop a theophilus and not simply biophilia as Wilson concludes.

Moonset and Springtime

I took this photo from my porch as I was watching the moon and experimenting with my telescope just after dusk.  The planets Mars and Saturn have been high and bright through the last month (Saturn is now in Leo, and Mars in the Gemini).  I’m excited to use our new Orion SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian telescope for Outdoor Education classes this year.  It should provide us with ability to easier use and view the heavens above.

The spring wildflowers are now coming out and it looks like they will be showing their full glory this year.  The wetter winter weather we had this year has certainly helped, and we’re seeing it in our plants, trees, and quickly-coming flowers.  The wild lilac are beginning to bud, which is my favorite sight in the spring chaparral.

Wonderful Sky

We were blessed with both a cloudy soggy day at the camp today, as well as a clear sky in the early evening for a great view of the total lunar eclipse!  The day began extremely foggy, visibility was less than 100 yards and then gradually wore off during the morning.  But the bank of clouds sat on the hills just to the south and west of us all day and just after noon began to pelt us with hail for two hours.  We accumulated at least an inch of hail in places

Once again, I’m very thankful for the precipitation we’re receiving, it is wonderful to hear the creeks flowing and already see some spring appearing with the greener hills and sprouts on the trees and bushes.  I noticed Buck brush (Ceanothus cuneatus) flowering on San Franciscito Road this week.

After work I headed into Palmdale to join the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club viewing of the lunar eclipse at the SAGE Planetarium.

Preparation is underway for the Outdoor Education Spring Season.  It’s exciting preparing schedules and looking over our curriculum and supplies as I’m in touch with the school teachers who will be attending with their classes this year.  I’m especially excited for our astronomy classes because of the new additions to curriculum with the training I’ve put in this winter.  I’ve also found some excellent online resources: Stellarium, Celestia and Space Weather.  The first two are free PC, Mac and Linux programs to download–I highly recommend downloading them and trying them out, they are simple to use and very impressing (way to go opensource!).  The second is a community of mostly amateur astronomers with a lot of information and links to current events in the night sky.