Oakland Youth Care about Oaks

This ETP is an expansion of "Predicting Forest Health: Sudden Oak Death in Coast Live Oak Trees" created by the Ignited Fellow, Angelica Corral in 2017. Sudden oak death (SOD) is a disease infecting various oak species on the West Coast. The Wood lab is focusing on Quercus agrifolia or the Coast/California Live Oaks (CLO) in the East Bay Regional Parks. SOD is caused by Phytophthora ramorum, an introduced oomycete brought in from abroad to the U.S. The progression of SOD in CLO looks like "tree bleeding", then ambrosia beetle attack and a fungus, Annulohypoxylon which is secondary to the infection but detrimental to the survival of CLO. Students will be observing the symptoms of sudden oak death in the field, collecting their own data, and analyzing the data collected by the Wood lab to support their claims about the future of Coast Live Oaks in the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD). Students will use their findings to create and present in a small group poster session during class.

Oakland Youth Care about Oaks is an opportunity for students to extend their field knowledge and research from the poster into something that could benefit the community. The final product will be a PSA about the anthropogenic harms on the environment specific to introduced pathogens and invasive species and they should include a solution to reduce those impacts on the local parks.