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:
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.