Campus:  UC Riverside

Instructor: John Rotenberry

Reserves Used:
Boyd Deep Canyon
  Desert Research Center
James San Jacinto
  Mountains Reserve
Motte Rimrock Reserve
Sweeney Granite Mountains
  Desert Research Center

Featured Reserve:
Students are amazed as they travel the "Pines Palms Highway" - Highway 74 between Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center near Palm Desert to James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve near Idyllwild. In less than an hour, they move from arid desert floor to rugged conifer forest and rapidly flowing streams. Once they reach the James Reserve, they can explore a wide variety of plant communities, including mixed conifer and hardwood forests, montane chaparral, and montane riparian forest.

For the most part, these are urban kids, and it's clear that many of them aren't acquainted with the natural world. We aren't going to turn most of them into ecologists, but they are going to vote someday and we want them to have an appreciation of the natural world so they'll understand the implications of the decisions they're making.

-John Rotenberry, UC Riverside

When Bill Mayhew came to UC Riverside in 1954 as a founding faculty member, one of the first classes he established was a field biology course that included weekend field trips.  "I was trying to teach the students the habitats in which animals live and how the animals were able to develop and successfully live in those habitats," he told an interviewer over four decades later. "I averaged about a thousand miles a semester on field trips."

But as more and more of his key teaching sites were lost to southern California development during the fifties and sixties, Mayhew came to work with Ken Norris to establish the NRS in 1965. When Mayhew retired from teaching in 1989, his field class continued, first under Marlene Zuk and then under John Rotenberry, who continues to teach it today.

The focus remains the same. "The purpose isn't to turn all our students into ecologists," explains Rotenberry, "but to educate them about the natural world. Vertebrates are good tools for teaching about evolution, ecology, animal behavior and physiology. We touch on all those areas. The labs focus on identifying animals, primarily birds and secondarily lizards and other reptiles, because these are the animals students are most likely to see."

After a few indoor lab sessions working with prepared specimens, the students begin venturing out to observe the animals in nature. "Our first trip is across campus to the botanic gardens," Rotenberry explains. "It opens the students' eyes. Suddenly the campus is swarming with animals they never knew were there. It's literally a world made new."

Each succeeding field trip ventures a little further afield. "We visit the Motte Reserve two or three times each year," notes Rotenberry, "where staff members demonstrate mist netting and bird banding, as well as small mammal trapping. We'll also talk to any researchers working there. But most of our time is spent learning to observe and identify animals."

This process continues on two subsequent weekend trips. The first is to the Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center and the nearby James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve. "It's a real contrast," explains Rotenberry. "We usually go to Boyd in the morning before it gets too hot, and then up the hill to the James, where it can be snowing."

The final trip is to Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center. "It's a three-and-a-half-hour drive, but it's worth it, because it introduces these largely urban students to a whole new world filled with toads, snakes, lizards, and birds. At first, they're worried, but most of them grow to like it. It's funny how a couple of good snakes can make a field trip."