John Woolman School is a Quaker boarding school located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, about 8 miles north of Nevada City. The school owns 230 acres in the rural countryside. It has a staff of 18 and a student body of about 50.

About 2 years ago the Environmental Science class began a project to map the campus and to develop a comprehensive environmental history of the school property. The first stage of this multi-year project involved mapping the various ecosystems located on the campus. These ecosystems are highly diverse for such a small area - including the following types of vegetation - Riparian, Blue Oak & Foothill Pine, Ponderosa Pine, Mixed Chaparral, Montane Chaparral, Meadow, Pasture, and Orchard. Currently, we are in the process of beginning to map other aspects of the campus.

 Here is an aerial photograph of what the campus looks like. The meadow and buildings are part of the central campus.

  One of the first projects we might do is to digitalize our habitate data. This data will look something like this:

  This map of the campus habitates will lay the ground work for doing more detailed study of the specific ecosystems. In particular, . since there is a serious concern about fire potential, we will most likely focus our immediate attention on the stands of Ponderosa pine and Montane chaparal. The use of GIS software will help us to map out such factors as tree size, forest density, and fuel laddering. Overlaying these themes should help us determine the most susceptible areas. It will also help us to assess the best method for removing any harvested material in the most ecological manner.

 

 
   Here is a graphical representation of the central campus layout.

  Five years ago, a biology teacher at John Woolman built 15 bird houses and placed them in appropiate places to encourage the nesting of Western Bluebirds. We currently have 21 nesting boxes that we monitor weekly. As such, we coorrdinate our efforts with the National Audoban Society to increase the number of bluebirds in the Sierra Nevada.

  We have been recording weekly data for each box over this 5 year period. This data is in a data base and could thereby be easily imported as a theme on top of our GIS base map. Below is a map showing the locations of the 21 boxes. The map also shows where we have located a nest box for wood ducks.

  One of the projects that gets coordinated through both the life sciences and the physical sciences is analysis of water quality on the JWS campus. We have an increadible variety of aquatic habitates to study. In addition to the Woolman Creek, we also study the water at Mel,s Pond (which is very eutrophic), the water at the NID Pond (which supports lots of native flora and fauna), the water which comes out of our two wells (which gives us a glimse of our ground water), and the water at the evaporation ponds (which is filled with all kinds of interesting creatures). Each of these water sources are quite unique - providing us with an excellent opportunity to explore various aspects of water in the modern world.

  In addition to studying the water on the campus, the students at John Woolman also study the larger aspects of the Yuba watershed. For instance, we take macro-invertebrate counts at Deer Creek. Additionally, a number of students are also actively involved with work to save the Yuba River. Our student activist group is dedicated towards the decommisioning of Englebright Dam. We are also registered with the River Keepers (of the South Yuba River) to begin regular monitoring of a site near the campus.

  Here is a map showing the relationship of the JWS campus (shown in yellow) to both Deer Creek and the South Yuba River.