4 minute read
FROM THE ROOTS
Photo: Faith Thompson Cover Photo: Madison Mitchell
FROM THE ROOTS
An Oklahoma nature reserve finds new life thanks to EAST students at Northeast Tech - Claremore
For years, EAST students at Northeast Tech - Claremore in Oklahoma have worked with the Rogers County Conservation District, a small government agency focused on maintaining the environmental health of the area.
Robert Gibbs is the education coordinator at the Rogers County Conservation District and has been the primary community partner with Northeast Tech’s EAST students who work in the area. Gibbs said that the assistance he’s received from students has been invaluable due to the small number of workers in his field.
“The program itself is unbelievable,” Gibbs said. “I work for a very small local government agency, and we’re very short-staffed and underfunded. To be able to have the students do projects for us in areas where we don’t have staff and the knowledge base is a huge help.”
One of the first projects students took on with Gibbs was mapping out the trails at the Rogers County Nature Reserve, creating a more accessible experience for anyone who wants to go for a hike. On top of this, they also created different opportunities for visitors to learn about the wildlife in the area.
“They used GPS and [Arc]GIS on the trails and created great maps that are now all around the reserve so people can see where they are going,” Gibbs said. “They’ve identified the birds that visit various areas of the reserve and created cue cards showing guests where they can be found, as well as including QR codes that will give visitors more information on the area and the animals.”
Joshua Driskel is a junior at Northeast Tech and has led the overhaul of the RCCD’s website. Gibbs admits the website has been barebones and aesthetically lacking in the past, but says Driskel has introduced several new features and designs.
“He had ideas that I didn’t because in the past, we’ve used our website but definitely haven’t used it to its fullest extent,” Gibbs said. “Before I would just use it as a calendar to show availability for the nature center, and would literally copy pictures over from Microsoft Word on the website. So he completely redesigned the website to make it look a lot better and made it a lot more user friendly.”
Driskel implemented different pages sharing information about the RCCD, the nature reserve and its wildlife — as well as providing a map with directions to the trails.
“The changes consisted of an overall redesign of the site layout,” Driskel said. “The color was changed throughout the entire site and the pages themselves were rearranged to be more accessible and user-friendly.”
The most recent project the program has started with the RCCD involves finding ways to combat invasive species in the area. Through a partnership with Phil Handly and ERGIS, students were able to scan the area using a drone, and are working through the data to find areas that are most affected by invasive species.
“With the invasive species, trying to control them is a day-to-day process,” Gibbs said. “So finding out where they are spreading the fastest by using the data is critical because it helps me focus on where to use my spare time to combat that.”
The data that Phil Handly and the students gathered takes months to process, but the students are planning to track where invasive species are located by mapping using ArcGIS this semester.
EAST at Northeast Tech - Claremore’s work with the Rogers County Conservation District may never be completed, but to say their involvement has improved the RCCD and its exposure to people in the area would be an understatement.
“They’re bringing in technology and new things that I’m not very comfortable with and don’t know how to use,” Gibbs said. “It’s letting me take the nature center to the next generation of visitors and education programs with technology that I would have never thought of.”
Photo: Evan Cole
