Restoration Ecology is a class taught by Julia Michaels (visiting professor) at Reed College. The course is classified as an upper division biology course and is focused on field work. This course is focused on understanding the connection between biological theory and restoration efforts. The central project of the lab has been to create restoration plans for Ritmanis Pond which is located on the east side of the Reed Canyon. As this property is owned by the Ritmanis family the class will present their restoration plan to them as well as Zac Perry who has led the Reed Canyon restoration since 1999. The first iteration of this class was taught in the spring of 2021 and due to the COVID-19 pandemic the lab work has been split into remote and in person lab groups. Building this website has been one of the projects assigned to the remote lab group. We have worked together with our in person peers to come up with the various pages seen on this site and to help with data analysis. The goal of this site is to educate members of the Reed community as well as the general public about the different facets of the canyon that we have learned about in this course.
Each habitat group came up with different monitoring and restoration goals depending on their site. Some of the goals included: monitoring the surface area of the pond (for the open water group), monitoring coyote activity (for the wetland group) and removing invasive canary grass (for the upland group).
Seen above are the following species: Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa), California Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi), and the Coyote (Canis Latrans)