Botanical Data Collection of Sabercat Historical Park Using Google My Maps for the City of Fremont
Advisor: Ms. Covert
Internship Location: Sabercat Historical Park
Onsite Mentor: Sabrina Siebert
Non-native plants deeply harm our ecosystems, and they are readily found at nurseries and stores without designation. At the same time, many people are unaware about the beautiful, eco-friendly native plants that flourish in their local ecosystem, like Fremont’s city parks. To help remediate this problem that the City of Fremont needs solved, my senior project will create a native plant map of Sabercat Historical Park, a popular greenspace. Through GoogleMyMaps, I’ll precisely map out and pin native plants of importance, providing descriptions, details and pictures about the plant, and resources on where individuals can purchase this plant. Alongside showcasing native plants, I’ll pin common, harmful invasive plants, so people can conserve invasive plants. Through accessible QR code on park signage to access my map, my project will educate the citizenry of Fremont to conserve our ecosystem one plant at a time.
Project Blog
Week 0: Introduction
My name is Romil and welcome to Blog 0 of my Senior Project.
Have you ever visited a local park and admired the plants, only to wonder what they were? I’ve always loved exploring the outdoors, but I noticed that while many people enjoy greenspaces, they know little about their beautiful flora. My project is designed to change that.
For my senior project, I’ll be creating a virtual botanical map for Sabercat Historical Park in Fremont, CA. This 98-acre park is one of the city’s most popular outdoor spaces, but like many other parks, but the city needs a resource to help visitors identify its flora and fauna. I’m developing a Google MyMap with pins marking specific plant locations throughout the park. Each pin will provide multimedia resources like photos, descriptions, and videos to help visitors learn about native and invasive species. Visitors will access the map by scanning QR codes on existing park signage, making it easy for anyone to learn about the plants around them as they explore the trails.
I was inspired to pursue this project because I love nature and have done conservation work. I completed my Eagle Scout project at this very park, where I built bee houses using local flora like elderberries and willow. I'm familiar with the park’s ecosystem and value environmental education.
Native plants play a crucial role in supporting local ecosystems. For example, California oak trees can support over 500 species of caterpillars, which are essential for pollinators like monarch butterflies. In contrast, non-native species often provide little to no habitat for local wildlife and can disrupt the balance of an ecosystem. By educating park visitors about native plants, I hope to inspire more people to incorporate them into their landscaping, reducing the spread of invasive species and supporting biodiversity.
Over the next couple weeks, I’ll survey and map the plants along Sabercat Historic Park's main trail, dividing the park into sections for detailed study. Using tools like a compass and measuring tape, I’ll record the exact locations of plants and create a comprehensive Google MyMap. Each pin on the map will feature photos, descriptions, videos, links, and additional resources, such as where to purchase native plants for personal use.
To make the project accessible to the public, I’ll collaborate with the City of Fremont to publish the map on their Environmental Services Division website and embed QR codes on park signage. Visitors will be able to scan these codes and access my map, so when they visit the park they can have an interactive learning experience.
Through this project, I aim to connect people with their local environment and encourage sustainable practices. By learning about the plants around them, park visitors will feel more connected to nature and inspired to protect it.
Week 1: Overcoming Challenge and Building Routine
This week was my first week working on my Senior Project to build a GoogleMyMap for the City of Fremont. On day one, I felt confident, knowing that I would be making my map through a routine but simple process of approaching a plant with my compass app, screenshotting the coordinates, taking a picture and then uploading everything onto GoogleMyMaps. My three hours on Monday were spent doing this, tirelessly. But, it turned out that when I had devised this method, I didn't realize how inaccurate it was until I started copy pasting the coordinates on Monday afternoon into MyMaps, and noticed plants close to each other kept getting pinned in the same spot! Throughout this process, I used an app on my phone called Seek which helps to identify any plant.
At first, this was definitely an overwhelming challenge. The tool that I was going to rely on wouldn't work. But, after taking to my external advisor, I came up with a backup plan. Google MyMaps provides satellite imagery of the park, and the trees on the trail that I was working on were visible, I could correspond what I was seeing to the satellite imagery on the map. However, many plants aren't visible, so I will use measurements from nearby landmarks for hard to plot plants, use the FieldGIS app which provides somewhat accurate coordinates, and rely on estimation, as my external advisor often does!
So on Tuesday, I went on and repeated all my work in the same area. This time however, I had my tape measure. To make sure I was accurate, my work went a lot like this: I saw that an oak tree was situated between two fence posts, so I counted the fence posts on the map. I measured how far the tree was from the fence post, and then traced that distance on GoogleMyMaps to pin the plant! Tuesday afternoon, I relied on the FieldGIS method to begin plotting a row of 34 small plants that PG&E had just installed. It still wasn't accurate, so I resorted to doing my best estimation.
On Wednesday, I finished up this row of 34, and began to work on developing a method for how I would plot the dense tree cover and brush by the creek. I decided that on the map, I would try and shade the approximate tree canopies, since that is visible in satellite imagery. At the same time, I would pin the trunk. However plants often grow in conjunction and many trees can be in a super small area. So after meeting with Ms. Covert, my internal advisor, we decided to take pictures of certain sections of trail, shade the area of tree cover, and pin and list all the plants in that area. With the pictures my map will provide, users can still learn about the plants, just all at the same time!
On Thursday, I used this method on some of the hardest, most dense parts of Sabercat Creek Trail, and it was a reasonable success! I also finally finished up pinning all the plants in the Quema Trail Section!
Friday was my day to get organized. I took pictures of the plants that I had pinned, sorted them into folders, and began organizing the individual pins of my plants into layers on Google MyMaps based on the site that they were in. I also pinned some plants in Site 4 and along Sabercat Creek Trail with my new 100ft tape measure provided by the city!
Overall, it was a fun week, and I'm now able to identify a ton of local flora, without the help of Seek! Arroyo vs Red Willow? I got you!
This is the main area I worked on this week:
Some areas can get pretty tangled, but here's my solution of shading areas and including multiple pins:
Here's me identifying a plant to be pinned:
That's it for this week! Thanks!
Week 2: Getting Organized
This week, I have been working to organize my map. With thousands of plants that I'll have to map as I continue working in the park, I thought it would be important to manage the hundred or so pins that I currently have. I have decided to create layers for every location at Sabercat Historical Park, so that in the future, when I'm working in an area, I will just need to pin the plants in that particular layer. This will make it easy for the visitor to find plants in a given area, and easy for me to manage 10 or so pins in a smaller layer, rather than hundreds of pins all in one larger layer. This is my first main organizational tool that I discovered this week. This week, I'm working on organizing my largest layer, the entrance of the park, with Quema, Paseo Padre Parkway, and the beginning of Sabercat Trail. I've pinned all the plants in this area, so I'm trying to get this done.
In terms of what I've actually been doing to get organized, I have been slowly but surely uploading pictures of all the plants from Sabercat Historical Park onto their pins. I remember the general location of the plants and can easily correspond pins of plants to their pins on the map, so have been using that. With these pictures, I'm also compiling a folder for my External Advisor, so that she can use my images for future city projects. So far, my work this week has also included just formatting all the pins correctly with the right punctuation, and dragging them into the order in which a visitor would see them. This week by Sunday, once this organizational work is completed, I'm heading back out to the park with a much longer 100 ft tape measure to continue mapping. I'll collect all my photographs on the last day of each week, so that way I can get organized at the end of each week or the beginning of the next week. With hundreds of plants, organization is essential, and though the work this week feels almost menial, it is important to the longevity and success of my project as the plants only increase.
I also learned to stay organized in the simplest manner right now. The more energy I spend organizing for each week (ie labelling plants different colors, adding different logos) means that each week I will have to spend more time organizing instead of out in the field. My priority is to work out in the field, so I've decided that in the end if I have time I will go back and make things color-coded and more pretty, while for now, keeping it simple.
That's it for this week!
Week 3: Steady Progress
At the start of this week, I made sure that all the sections of the trail that I had worked on were fully complete after all my work last week attaching photographs to plant pins. This week, I ended up walking a really dense forested part of the trail 3 times, and finally on the last try didn't notice any missing photographs, or even plants altogether. After that, I moved on and continued mapping plants farther along the main Sabercat Creek trail in both directions. Based on what I learned last week, I made sure to stay organized and each time I moved on to a different section of trail, I created a new layer on the map. I managed to pin the bulk of the plants in Restoration Site 4 of Sabercat Historical Park.
At this point, I've kind of made some decisions that will influence the rest of my project. With my photographs, I have decided to take multiple kinds of pictures for each plant. I try to take a picture that shows the plant visible from the trail, so people can easily figure out which plant they are looking at from the pin on my map. But at the same time, if this picture doesn't provide enough detail I go close to the plant to take a more detailed photograph of the leaves, blossoms, and flowers. I've also worked on compiling all my pictures into folders on the Photos App so that my external advisor has access to images the city needs to document the various plants in their restoration sites (the same sites I spend a lot of time mapping).
With regards to pinning things on the map, I have kind of figured out how to identify trees from how they look on the satellite. For example, a dense dark green is typically a coast live oak, and a small mass of light green is usually a California Black Walnut. So I can kind of pick apart trees like this. In other areas that are more dense or larger trees cover smaller trees, I measure the distance to plants from objects. Then, I find my reference and object and use the Google MyMaps measuring tool to get the accurate location my new 100 ft tape measure. Some areas, have both dense plant cover on the satellite, and no frames of reference. In that case I try and see whether the plant is in line with a house in the distance or anything remotely close by like a house. I then go on maps, and ditch my tape measure. Even my external advisor told me she often ends up resorting to this same system!
Finally, for now, I am keeping things on the map simple, Most of my pins are blue and look the same. Once clicked on the specifics of each plant are provided. Originally, I wanted all the different kinds of trees to be color-coded and to even have different logos for invasive/native/non-native plants. But each of those extra clicks really adds up when I am working with tens of thousands of plants. So, after talking to my internal and external advisor, I've decided to focus on getting most of the plants pinned, and simplicity. if there's time at the end, maybe I'll realize my dreams.
Overall, this week has been super fun. I can now recognize most of the plants without using the Camera App on my phone. But today, something really exciting happened. After marking many of the same plants over and over again, I was pleasantly surprised to see a completely new plant with what appeared to be seeds, blossoming on a part of the trail I'd never seen. It was a an Almond tree, a reminder of the park's—and Fremont's—larger agricultural history. Today reminded me that the trees around me and the land around me carry a history, and it was exciting to see an almond tree and reminder of the Silicon Valley's deeply agricultural roots.
This week I worked to pin some really plant dense areas really accurately!
Here's a picture of the Almond I found:
Here's some of the work I did to get organized:
See you next week!
Week 4: Plant Learnings
Throughout my time at Sabercat Historic Park, a lot of major tree species have repeated. Part of my project is describing these trees on my Google MyMap. So for each week for the next two weeks of the blog, I'll describe 3 of the most prominent tree species at Sabercat Historic Park, and their ecological significance.
Coast Live Oak
The coast live oaks are some of the largest trees at Sabercat Historic Park, the most mature occupy a significant part of the riparian forest canopy. Oak trees produce significant amounts of acorns, and so the acorns they provide help a thriving squirrel population that uses acorns as one of their main food sources. Furthermore, coast live oaks stay green throughout the year, and they constantly lose leaves throughout the year. When walking by these trees, their dead, drying leaves cover swaths of the forest floor. Thus, mature coast live oaks play an important role in protecting the soil of the forest floor, providing habitats for decomposers, and for playing a role in soil regeneration. Coast Live Oaks are commonly found on steep slopes throughout the park, so their roots play a significant role in stopping soil erosion. Sometimes, poison oak closely associates with Coast Live Oak, and can require additional caution. The coast live oak image is a younger tree, but illustrates its ability to survive and help prevent erosion on hillsides.
Blue Elder
Blue elder is an exciting native plant that is found in riparian areas and in chaparral ecosystems like Sabercat Historic Park. Blue Elder has some of the most vivid light green leaves. They spread out across the forest floor, and are well equipped to grow along steep areas, that are common by creeks. Blue Elder have pithy stems and softer wood, that is made use of by certain bee species like mason bees, that rely on rotting wood to nest. Blue Elder are commonly associated with Blackberry and so they help support other species. Beyond other plants that they support, I've observed mice that seem to nest in their trunks. Elderberry also has numerous health benefits to humans, and this is a common plant that is added to supplements. Elderberry has white flowers that attract pollinators, and their fruit helps to provide additional food sources to animals on the forest floor (Calscape).
California Buckeye
The California buckeye is a deciduous tree, meaning it sheds its leaves. However, the tree is such a California-adapted species that sometimes, it doesn't just shed its leaves as you would expect in the winter months, it's adapted to shed its leaves at any point in the Mediterranean climate when it needs to (Raiche). At this time at Sabercat Historic Park, the springs buds are growing and each week, the tree has gotten greener and greener as its leaves unfold. The buckeye isn't the tallest plant, and oftentimes, I've seen it grow under the canopy of the larger oak trees. Instead, its branches can spread out over wider swaths of area, helping it adapt to acquire light from any openings in the forest canopy. The Buckeye is a notoriously hardy plant, so its ecological significance may have an important role to play as climate change affects plant populations (Lukes). Not only can it adapt to seasons as mentioned above, it is resilient to predators because its produces toxic compounds, and so do its seeds (Lukes). And, as a hardy flowering plant, Buckeye will play an important role in helping struggling pollinator populations into the future.
My Progress
This week, I almost made it to another restoration site at Sabercat: Site 3. On the way, I ran into a challenge. Usually, I match up single, distinct trees with their satellite image and use that as reference points for my tape measure. However, I realized this week that some trees I used as reference were actually cut down by the city because they were covering the trail too much. So, I had to improvise and come up with a new reference frame. I also got to see a new species this week that was very popular with the pollinators, the Bermuda Buttercup, a bright yellow flower that grows very close to the ground. My map now has fields of flowers, something I promised in my final map. I also got to see a full grown California Walnut. I continued my method of taking pictures adding them to the map before proceeding to new sections.
Works Cited
Calscape. “Blue Elderberry.” Calscape.org, 2023, calscape.org/Sambucus-mexicana-(Blue-Elderberry).
Lukes, Laura. “The Buckeye | UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.” UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, 22 Mar. 2019, ucanr.edu/blog/real-dirt-blog/article/buckeye. Accessed 28 Mar. 2025.
Raiche, Roger. “Pacific Horticulture | California Buckeye: A Tree for All Seasons.” Pacific Horticulture, pacifichorticulture.org/articles/california-buckeye-a-tree-for-all-seasons/.
Week 5: Plant Guide Continued
This week I'll be continuing from my last blog post, and describe three more prominent native trees at Sabercat Historic Park, and their ecological benefit.
Northern California Black Walnut
The Northern California Black Walnut is a native, deciduous tree species meaning that the tree sheds its leaves in the wintertime. It is just like any other walnut plant, and in the summers and falls, produces a walnut, that is actually edible and thus provides ecological benefit to ecosystem like squirrels and smaller rats. However like the California buckeye, while it provides food sources, it has its own defense mechanisms like aromas and oils that serve to ward off plant pathogens. They have some of the largest canopies, and oftentimes, their thick intertwining branches make for great room for nests for bird species and I've seen many bird nests on black walnut tree as well. They help add to the reflectivity diversity of the forest canopy, as their leaves are some of the lightest green. Alongside willows, they are seen growing really close to the creek at Sabercat Historical Park, so they are adapted to wetlands.
Blue Oak
Blue oak is another deciduous tree that is common at Sabercat. There aren't many large, fully mature blue oaks at the park, as Blue Oak is a species that has been planted as a result of recent restoration projects. But, nonetheless they have grown fast, and will soon play a significant role in the hill ecology of the park. Since they shed their leaves, they help promote leaf litter renewal and enrich the soils of the park hillsides where they are planted. At the same time, their roots help hold the soil in place. Though they are called blue oaks, their leaves are still green, but they do in fact have a bluish hue to them. Out of all the trees that I have seen at Sabercat Historic Park, this one particularly benefits gall wasps, and I have seen numerous gall wasp nests on the frames of the Blue Oak. Thought visible yet because they are young saplings, the Sabercat blue oaks will eventually end up producing acorns alongside their Coast Live Oak counterparts, helping add sources of energy and food sources to ecosystem members like gophers.
Arroyo Willow
Rather than growing tall and appearing like a large frame visible from the trail, arroyo willows appear almost like a shrub, except that they occupy vast swaths of areas. Rather than growing tall, they are adapted to grow wide. As a result, they can easily intermingle with other plants like Trailing Blackberry that also grows more horizontal than vertically and the vines of Trailing Blackberry often grow near the horizontally-running trunks of the Arroyo Willow. They are a deciduous tree and at this time, they are blooming. They need moist soil and are great at holding wetland soil in place and preventing erosion control since they occupy so much area. Willow bark is a famous herbal remedy as well, and its bark contains a compound known as salicin which relieves pain, and is just like aspirin (“Nature’s Notebook: Arroyo Willow”). I've seen lots of native birds like blue jays, and other critters like squirrels forage and play in its tangled branches close to the ground.
Work This Week
This week I ended up mapping plants closer to some of the residential homes. As a result there was an increase in the amount of non-native species that I ended up mapping, as some homeowners planted flora along the property line, that ended up propagating into the park. For example, I saw a Chinese Elm and a Taiwanese Firethorn. There was a tremendous amount of poison oak along the trail, so I had to be really careful because the oils can even attach to clothing. Some of the residents are curious about my work, so this week I got to share my work and talked about the plants to an older gentleman who was very curious about Blue Elder and needed help identifying some poison oak. It was rainy this week, so sometimes I had to go to my car to wait out the rain and tried to get organized in the mean time. That's all for this week!
Bibliography
“Nature’s Notebook: Arroyo Willow.” USA National Phenology Network, mynpn.usanpn.org/npnapps/species/Salix/lasiolepis.
Week 6: The Importance of Sabercat Historic Park
The past two weeks, I discussed the ecological significance and the benefits that the plants at Sabercat Historic Park provide for the ecosystem. But this week, I want to take a broader look and provide an overview of the benefits that the park itself as a whole provides.
First of all, the park provides a significant break from suburbia. It is nestled in a very dense Fremont suburb and is one of the few large swaths of greenspaces. The park extends from areas close to Mission peak, to a larger inlet flowing into the bay. As a result, the park provides a source of water filtration and a way for water to safely and cleanly be transported to the San Francisco Bay without picking up a ton of pollutants that come with urban runoff. This is because there are numerous trees surrounding the riparian habitat that have extensive roots that help filter water. Some of these trees were discussed in last week's post, and they include the willow and California walnut.
Along with water filtration, the trees provide crucial air filtering services. On a smoky day, I was at Sabercat Historic Park and when I walked down towards the creek, the air was much cleaner and much cooler. Because of the urban heat island effect, the surrounding suburbs radiate a lot of heat, so the park helps remediate the temperature and air from surrounding surburban/urban disturbances. This clean water and air helps the wildlife too.
At the same time, the length of the park from the hills to the freeway provides a crucial wildlife corridor and habitat for wildlife. During my time I have seen leopards and deer along with numerous bird species like blue jays. The park itself also has a diversity of ecosystems that make it easy for animals to survive. Nesting animals like squirrels have plenty of habitat in the open golden hills, but can easily access food sources from the nearby oak woodlands, and have clean sources of water from being close to the riparian habitat.
This week I worked on a part of the trail that was close to residential homes. As a result, the landscaping involved a lot of non-native plants like the Oleander. This illustrates a clear problem that my project helps to solve; residents often choose non-native plants, even in areas surrounding parks where native plants are needed most. Otherwise, I did run into a challenge dealing with the Google MyMap software. This week, I accidentally added plants to the wrong layer, so I manually had to correct my error, and this took about an hour of time.
This is a view of some of the non-native plants close to the trail planted by some of the residents.
Week 7: Restoration Projects at Sabercat Historic Park
A lot of the times, the trees that I see at Sabercat Historic Park are newly planted. This is because the park is growing in their commitment to sustainability and restoration is taking place. Interestingly enough, a lot of restoration projects are not a result of my mentor's work, rather specific projects by big companies that sometimes pollute. Some restoration projects and plants that I have mapped at Sabercat Historic are part of PG&E's numerous restoration projects. Thanks to California legislation like CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, PG&E has been required by regulators to plant native plants specifically at Sabercat Park to aid in remediation after they used land in other parts of the Bay Area, and even state. PG&E has 3 restoration sites, and one of them was intended to compensate for remediation projects that were supposed to have happened in Santa Clara County. Additionally, BART has a restoration site at Sabercat Park too.
These projects help to show the power of California environmental policy as major utility companies and transportation companies are required to do something as simple as planting trees to account for their actions. It also highlights the power that simple actions like planting trees, has on the overall health benefits of the ecosystem; the state of California views this as a valid way of improving environmental health. It's super exciting that local neighborhood parks where mostly residents frequent are the places that are being filled with so many plants, which once again highlights the importance of my project in improving and promoting ecological education.
This past week (Week 7) I made it to and explored large portions of Site 5. While other parts of Sabercat Historic Park have younger trees, Site 5 has some of the largest most mature trees of the restoration projects led by mentor, since this Site was installed first. There are numerous large, mature Valley Oaks, and the Blue Elders are fully grown out. I saw the impact of invasive species this week, as a whole field that should have been a valley was covered in ivy (English and Algerian). The ivy was spreading, and covering native trees like Coast Live Oaks. It was a sad site to see, as the remediation of that site would not be simple. Finally, I saw two new tree species, an Ash tree, a common tree in the US, which residents frequently plant. Site 5 is by some residents homes, so that's why they were present. I saw an exciting new native tree species, only found at Site 5, the Fremont Cottonwood.
This is an ash tree by a resident's home.
Week 8: Spring has Sprung
This week I've gotten to see many changes with the park's flora and fauna, and would like to recap and compare them to the beginning of my project. First of all, many of the plants including complete trees have finished germinating, while the whole ecosystem's plants have began to flower. The blue oaks in the park, once just limbs in late February have now basically grown their full canopy. Willow species, both arroyo and red have fully finished germinating from their white and yellow buds. Northern California Black Walnut as well. Meanwhile, redbuds, which develop leaves during the spring months and didn't have any plant matter on their stems, now have some of the brightest purple flowers visible throughout the park. Sticky monkey flower, the same native plant that my Environmental Club has used in its garden, has now been seen blooming at various places throughout the park.
Part of spring is the wildlife that comes along with it. Yesterday, as I was wrapping up my work at the park, a bobcat looked at me, with a baby bobcat in her mouth. Bobcats are typically not dangerous, but can be dangerous when they are carrying their young. I slowly backed away and told my advisor who was excited about the news. Similarly, I saw an opossum mom, dad, and little baby child. I've seen numerous birds fly towards and around their nests.
While spring usually means the park's native plant restoration projects are in bloom, that also means the invasive grasses that line the hillsides of the park are typically at their tallest. The grasses found on our hills are actually relatives of oak, rye, and barley—intended to be used by cattle in the Spanish colonial ranching days. Now, these high grasses pose a fire hazard, and the park has a fun ecological solution: goats! Each spring, goats line the hillside and make sure to consume the grass down to a reasonable level so that there is no wildfire risk in the park, which could threaten the ecosystem and its human neighbors. However, this solution does have one drawback. The goats feces contain the same grass seeds, so each year, the grasses grow back continually. The goats do not provide a permanent solution, but nonetheless they help mitigate the risk of fire and are important to the safety of the ecosystem.
This week, I got to see species that are relatives of the maple family. I saw a box elder, and a maple tree my advisor planted herself. She told me there aren't that many maples around the park because they need water, but for the sake of ecological diversity, she planted this maple close to the creek, so its roots get plenty of water.
Here's part of a box elder I saw on the trail this week.
Week 9: A Big Push
This week, I really focused on getting as much of the trail mapped out as possible, and ensuring my map could be widely applicable to vast swaths of the park. I heavily relied on the Seek App, which helps me identify new plants along the trail. Since I was rapidly moving through many different sites, I used it to help me identify brand new tree species, like the Box Elder, and the and the White Alder tree. I got to see some fully mature valley oaks, and they are some of the most magnificent trees in the park. Seek helped me make sure I didn't misidentify them as Walnuts. At the same time, Seek helped me correct some errors of mine. Arroyo willows and red willows look very similar, and they can be hard to tell apart with the naked eye. I thought I was identifying them correctly, but this week I used seek to check and found out I'd made a mistake. Luckily, my mistake was confined to one restoration site, so I was quickly able to fix it.
I talked a lot with my External Advisor about her recommendations for the descriptions and what to include on each pin. I will be describing some common features and characteristics of each plant, like how much water they need, as well as how fast they grow. My External Advisor once again recommended Calfora and Calscape to gather more information for the plants for my description. She told me that these resources also include fun facts about the trees, like the ones that I used in my past blogs highlighting specific tree species. I'm going to try to highlight which plants have edible components (while still providing a disclaimer not to directly consume plant material from the park). Finally, my blog will be listing some common, trusted nurseries relied upon by the city at the top of my map. This way, the city isn't playing favorites to any particular nursery, and viewers of my map have wide-ranging choice.
I've made some progress in finding out how I will be promoting my map. I will first convert the Google MyMap to a QR code. I have found some stickers online that allow for a custom QR code and a message. I will be using these, and they are about 2 inches in diameter. These convenient stickers are perfect for the park, because they can easily be replaced. They aren't too big, so they can go on existing signage without covering anything else up. I'm beginning to wind down the project, and will be finalizing everything by the end of next week. So, I'm working through the weekend as well. See you next week for hopefully a good final product!
Here's a picture of a mature blue elder flowering, a recent but significant plant that has begun flowering at Sabercat:
Week 10: Wrap Up and Reflection
This week I focused on the community education component of my project. While I had finished mapping the vast majority of the park as best as I could, the main component of my project was educating the general public and Fremont residents about the plants and helping them form connections with their ecosystem. After extensive discussions, with my External Advisor, she highly recommended using the resource Calscape, which focuses on native plants to describe some of the prominent native flora.
So, I wrote description for 30+ of the main plants on Sabercat's main trail this week. I supplemented Calflora's factual information (properly cited throughout my map) with a paragraph about my own observations about the plant and my own educated theories about their ecological significance. This was a bit overwhelming, but I tried to make it fun as there were so many different plants that I'd never heard of that I'd seen for so long and could finally write about.
That's why in each of my descriptions for my map, I've tried to include fun facts about the plants. For example, box elder since it's a relative of maple produces a syrup that can be used to make a kind of maple syrup. We aren't in Canada, but it's so cool a Native California plant has the same properties as a maple tree in the Northeast. It really helps to show the connectedness and similar adaptations that plants have if they belong to the same family, even if they are in completely different parts of the world.
Previously, I could only really identify coast redwood and the coast live oak. But now, I can really appreciate the immense diversity of plants and have seen how some famous trees like the sycamore, and birch have native Californian relatives. The earth and its plants are really connected! More so, I really have a newfound gratitude to restoration ecologists and people like my mentor who went out into the field, every day, planting to transform the park into the oasis it is today.
Finally, I purchased the stickers with the QR code linked to my map. I have gotten approval to put them up around the park. My external advisor is currently working with the city to see if they can formally publish my map on city websites. This has been a fun and very fulfilling project!