PonderosaHigh School and GreenCareersCenter is a vocational training school that focuses on green jobs in Santa CruzCounty. They are operated by the Santa Cruz County Office of Education Alternative Education Department. The school is located at 305 Marion Avenue, in Ben Lomond. The student’s ages range from 15 – 19 years and they are youth who seek education and employment training in ‘green’ careers as they earn credits towards high school graduation.
Recently, ten students from PonderosaGreenCareersHigh School participated in the 2015 Santa Cruz Forestry Challenge. The event was held at Redwood Christian Park near Boulder Creek. There were over 90 high school students from the Santa Cruz and central California region who participated in the “Challenge.” One of the Ponderosa teams placed ninth in field testing out of a total of 22 teams.
The “Challenge” featured two areas of learning objectives which were “Ecology, Botany, and Plant Identification” and “Timber Cruising, Forest Management and Forest Products.” The 2015 Focus Topic was “InterpretingSoquelDemonstrationStateForest to its Users.” The objective is to understand the forest ecology and how to interpret it to others.
One of the highlights for the students this year was the opportunity to help create content and signage for a self-guided tour under development at SDSF. “After spending a day at SDSF learning about its ecology, history, and management, students developed portions of a script that will be integrated into an android-based application for smart phones,” said Diane Dealey Neill, founder of the “California Forestry Challenge. “During the “Challenge,” the teams of students also completed field training, followed by a field test, to assess their technical forestry knowledge.”
Frankie Cagle, a senior at PonderosaHigh School, summed it up as follows: “I’m not sure what’s building faster, my love for forestry or my résumé – most definitely both, at high speeds.”
PonderosaHigh School is a rich source of young people educated to appreciate the forest ecology. Should any Santa Cruz ‘green’ employer be looking for potential employees, they may want to learn more about the qualifications of the graduating students. For more information: Phone: 336-9338.
