Field Trips and Short Courses
Field Trips
Swanton Pacific Ranch welcomes hands-on learning.
As an integral component to the Ranch's living and learning laboratory, we work to provide opportunities for discovery and encourage instructors to utilize the landscape to its fullest instructional extent. Recognized and a hot-spot for biodiversity, the Swanton Valley produces approximately 20% of California's native botanicals, rare and endangered species, conserved lands and sustainably managed resource use across a mosaic landscape.
Students from equally diverse backgrounds will find new ground to grow and explore as they engage in guided learning, lecture and field-based activities. A wide range of disciplines have benefited from field trips to the Swanton Valley including Hydrology, Forestry, Restoration, Sustainable Agriculture, Soil Science, Environmental Geology, Watershed Management, Botany, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Art. We invite interest from new participants throughout biological, physical and social science fields.
Student and instructor facilities are available on-site. Please contact us with your course interests.
Short Courses
We have been honored to host experts form various professions who look to the Swanton Valley as a great resource to their short courses, workshops and field demonstrations. Of particular note is the Fluvial Geomorphology course offered by Wildland Hydrology's David Rosgen. Other events include Salmonid Restoration Foundation field tours, "Coho Salmon and Steelhead Enhancement Projects on Santa Cruz County's North Coast" and an on-site horse facility waste water management design demonstration site. We encourage interested professionals to contact us with new ideas for field-based learning and skills training.