Ecological Restoration

Students contribute to local restoration efforts

By Peter van Ryn (senior, environmental earth and soil science)

With a vision to create a new senior project course in the Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences Department, Assistant Professor Yamina Pressler developed a class that introduces the science of restoration ecology while engaging students in the actual practice of ecological restoration.

“The crucial point of this class is to help students develop knowledge and skills in restoration to prepare them for careers in conservation. The more opportunities we can provide students to engage in conserving and restoring their local environment, the better,” Pressler said.

The class was first offered in spring 2023. Pressler’s two primary goals were to give students a senior project class experience that would provide them an opportunity to work with local partners on real-world projects and give them agency and flexibility in their project design.

Rachel Wright, a ’23 environmental management and protection graduate who took the course last quarter said, “Dr. Pressler did an amazing job at providing us with new information in a passionate way while also pushing us to use the tools we have been given by the NRES Department and apply them to a real project.”

Establishing a course context and local field site was key to the success of this class. Thanks to a partnership with the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo, the Santa Rita Ranch, a 1,700-acre property in Templeton, California, was offered as a field site.

The site provided a unique opportunity for students. The Land Conservancy, which recently acquired the property, is in the process of developing a management plan. Therefore, aspects of the student projects might be implemented into a working conservation and restoration plan for the ranch.

Historically, cattle grazed the ranch for about 70 years. Now grazing is limited to half of the ranch, providing the opportunity to study the differences in biodiversity and soil health of the two sides. Based on their projects, students will help the Land Conservancy develop ways to observe and monitor ecological responses to management interventions aimed at conserving wildlife habitat and biodiversity.

“Having the opportunity to work with the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo at Santa Rita Ranch was not taken for granted, as every student in the class was able to comprehend how fortunate we were to have this experience,” Wright said. “The most valuable thing I learned is that collaboration and cooperation are essential to every project. This includes having respectful communication with all necessary parties involved.”

The student projects recommended:

• Establishing a monitoring framework to evaluate the impacts of grazing exclusion.
• Identifying impacts of grazing on serpentinite floral communities.
• An overview and restoration plan focused on invasive thistle.
• Advancing an adaptive rotational grazing system to restore grassland biodiversity and soil health.
• Establishing a long-term monitoring plan for bat populations.
• Restoration education through engaging secondary school students in outdoor learning.
• A restoration plan for promoting riparian health in Cienega Creek.

This course helped me realize that I have so much passion for restoration and has inspired me to go into the field of ecology.

— Rachel Wright

After 10-weeks of preparation, the class culminated with a capstone student symposium in which the students presented their projects to an audience of peers, faculty members, family, supporters and special guests, including members of the Land Conservancy, the city of San Luis Obispo, the Upper Salinas-Las Tablas Resource Conservation District and others.

“Ecological restoration was truly one of the most educational classes I took at Cal Poly,” Wright said. “Though a combination of Dr. Pressler’s teaching, the course content and the Learn by Doing approach, this course provided experiences that acted as a culmination of all the things I had learned thus far in my education.”

Pressler believes that humanity can and must be stewards of the natural world. “Biodiversity needs to be conserved because it exists,” Pressler said. “These systems have intrinsic value that go beyond the services that they provide to humanity. Ecological restoration is a key part of conservation.”

Wright added, “This course helped me realize that I have so much passion for restoration and has inspired me to go into the field of ecology.”

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Read more stories in the Summer 2023 Newsletter