Message from Mr. Nick“This field guide has been created to encourage teachers, students, parents, and children to get outside and discover the often hidden beauty that lies within their own local ecosystems. Many of us grow up learning about far off places and forget to explore our own backyards. Just off our High Tech Chula Vista campus, 53 eleventh grade students engaged in 16 weeks researching our chaparral, riparian, and California sage scrub ecosystems. With nearly 100 miles of field research hiking, each student worked to locate, observe, research, identify, create, and refine five unique organism field guide pages using Adobe Illustrator. This field guide is 100% student designed and created. It represents their transition from being students to becoming ecologists and stewards of our shared land with all organisms big and small. Hike to a high spot on the land to see a bird’s eye view, sit down next to a shrub and look closely, and no matter what you do use your five senses to take in all your surroundings have to offer. Now it’s time to go outside, enjoy the physical and mental benefits of exploration, and use our field guide to identify what’s around you!”
-Nick Ehlers, Wildlife Ecologist and HTHCV Biology/Environmental Science Teacher |