Last month while clearing ice storm damage from the Old School Site in West Yaquina, Nick Marrant and Grant Snyder discovered a tree unlike any other on the preserve. Research revealed that an American chestnut tree has survived here, far removed from the blight that killed those on the East Coast. Another non-native species grows nearby, Port Orford cedar, and it’s nearly certain the settlers who built homes near the old schoolhouse planted these species along with multiple native rhododendrons to festoon their landscape.

Yakona’s Creating Connections is an innovative biodiversity monitoring program centering elementary, secondary, and postsecondary “students as scientists,” providing them with real-world experience in climate and conservation science woven through art, history, language arts and math. Project and place-based instruction helps students learn how to be involved in the solution.