Over 100 students in Carla Zezula’s 9th-11th grade Biology and Earth Science classes participated in a service learning project to plant 400 sugar pine (blister rust resistant) and incense cedar seedlings in eroded slopes and burned forest on South Tahoe High School. The adjacent forest was burned in the Angora fire. Some steep disturbed soil remains after the construction of the football field, the road to the school and several new buildings. Replanting the area will stabilize the soil, and reduce snowmelt, erosion and sediment flow through Angora Creek into Lake Tahoe.
Prior to the planting activity, students learned about life cycles, blister rust and host-parasite relationships in the context of the biology of the Lake Tahoe watershed. Maria Mircheva from the Sugar Pine Foundation showed a short movie about sugar pine restoration, talked with the students about forest and watershed health and demonstrated planting techniques.
The goal is to repeat the activity in several more planting seasons and monitor the progress of the seedlings.
Students from the yearbook will be photographing the project for the news and the yearbook.
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