Saturday April 8, 9:00am, please meet in front of Campbell Hall.
Enrollment Code: 56226
This seminar will introduce students new to UCSB and the Santa Barbara area to the landscape and flora of the Santa Ynez Mountains. These mountains provide a spectacular backdrop, reaching nearly 4000 feet in elevation, and yet few UCSB students take advantage of the incredible recreational and natural history opportunities they offer. This all-day seminar will begin with a stop at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden to introduce students to some of the plants we will see on our hike. We will then drive to the Tunnel trailhead and begin our hike. One focus of the hike will be to monitor changes in temperature, relative humidity, and the geological substrate we ascend. We will compare these changes with changes in the plant communities (species composition and leaf forms) along the way.
Professor Christopher Still, Geography, area of research expertise is in interactions between plants and the atmosphere and determinants of the geographical distributions of plants. He teaches Geography 3A (Introduction to Physical Geography) and Geography 167 (Biogeography: The Study of Plant and Animal Distributions). Professor Still is planning to develop several field courses for undergraduate Geography courses.
