Traditional Instruction of UC California Naturalist Courses and
Wild Davis
All CalNat courses share core curriculum, structure, and requirements,
though each course differs slightly in its content focus and delivery.
All courses use the California Naturalist Handbook (deNevers et al 2013)
as a guiding text to the course and meet the following criteria:
- 40 hours of instruction: Students must attend all class sessions and
field days (one absence is permitted with make-up work).
- Participation in iNaturalist: Log at least 1 observation in
iNaturalist.
- Class Participatory Science Project: Participate in the project
adopted by each class.
- Required Readings: Read the entire “The California Naturalist
Handbook,” as well as any relevant bioregional or topical publication
as part of the UCANR 8000 online publication series, and complete
assigned homework.
- Nature Journaling: Create a field notebook for nature journaling with
entries from all field days and any personal observations.
- Capstone Projects. Complete, and present, a capstone project approved
by the instructor. Capstone projects must involve 8 hours of service
learning and fall into one of the following service categories:
environmental stewardship, education, program support, climate and
environmental justice, community resilience and adaptation, or
participatory science.
- Evaluation: Complete a post-course evaluation survey.
- Volunteer Service: Seriously consider and hopefully commit to
volunteering at least 40 hours a year in environmental stewardship,
education, program support, climate and environmental justice,
community resilience and adaptation, or participatory science. Record
all hours of service (including capstone project hours) in the
Volunteer Portal.
Within these requirements, individual courses may differ in terms of
timing and structure and their bioregion or habitat of focus. Classes
are generally small, ranging in size from 10-30, in order to support the
focus on experiential, field-based, hands-on learning. Research on the
CalNat courses and naturalists has shown that completing a CalNat course
increases content knowledge on California ecosystems and environmental
issues, raises student confidence in addressing environmental issues,
and inspires long-term engagement with participatory science and
environmental stewardship (Merenlender et al 2016)
This case study focuses on the CalNat course Wild Davis, offered to
undergraduates enrolled at UCD. This course is somewhat unusual among
CalNat courses in that it is focused on urban ecology in and around the
town and campus of Davis and in that it is the only CalNat course
offered for credit at a bachelor’s degree-granting institution. The
majority of CalNat courses focus on less anthropogenic landscapes (e.g.,
Sierra foothills, coastal redwood forests) and are offered by non-profit
environmental organizations (ex: Yolo Basin Foundation, Tuleyome),
research centers (e.g., Hopland Research and Extension Center), and
nature outreach/education organizations (e.g., Chico Creek Nature
Center). Several courses are offered through UC-affiliated
organizations, such as the UC Natural Reserves and campus arboretums,
and several others are offered for credit through various campuses of
the California Community College System.
Structure of individual courses, in terms of length and meeting times,
also varies. While each course must meet the 40 contact hours
expectation, these hours can be structured as a week-long, full-time
immersion course (e.g., Camp Ocean Pines), a 15-week course aligned with
a university semester schedule, (e.g., American River College), a
10-week course aligned with a university quarter schedule, (e.g., UCD
Wild Davis) or a multi-weekend approach (e.g., Calaveras Big Trees State
Park), as fits the schedule of the organizers and the interests of the
community. Since UCD is on the quarter system, Wild Davis is structured
as a four-credit, 10-week course offered during the spring quarter.
Under traditional teaching scenarios, the class meets once a week for
three hours during which approximately an hour is spent in lecture-style
content delivery and explanation of the week’s project, and the
remainder of the class time is spent ‘in the field’ performing urban
ecology data collection and experiments across campus. External
activities account for the remainder of the contact hours and include
field projects such as sit spots (in which students make observations of
the same area throughout the quarter) and data analysis projects
relating to data generated during in-class projects.