Tahoe Science and Forestry CTE program updates from South Tahoe High School

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Students at South Tahoe High School (STHS) have some amazing opportunities to explore careers and learn from highly experienced professionals in the many Career & Technical Education (CTE) pathways offered to students. They learn real-world skills and training in classic courses such as Construction & Engineering, Automotive Diagnosis & Repair, Culinary Arts & Baking, as well as new & innovative pathways such as Sports Medicine, Dental Assisting, Exercise Science, Environmental Science (Forestry & Natural Resources), and digital art courses such as Digital Photography, Digital Art Design, and Video Production & Broadcast.

Tahoe Science and Forestry CTE program Insight

Over the hills and through the woods Tahoe residents could catch our CTE Tahoe Science students. The forest is their classroom and the rivers and lakes are the texts from which they study. CTE Tahoe Science has broadened the perspective of what one could consider a learning environment and the CTE students are reaping the benefits of all the hands-on learning.

Early in the school year, the students were trained with the tools of an arborist and forest manager on the school grounds. Plotting forests and measuring trees, evaluating forest health and water table the students survey the STHS campus, readying for their excursions into the wild.

Their intrepid instructor, Richard Kinnett, has been carefully procuring the tools of the trade. Richard Kinnett, a graduate of Emory University (the “Harvard of the South”) and 15-year teaching veteran in Lake Tahoe Unified School District, invented this CTE Tahoe Science class (a blend of environmental engineering and forestry) and developed all the instructions on all the tools in the class. Once the students are knowledgeable, the world opens up around them. Kinnett and the partnerships of the Forest Service and the State Parks and Firefighting organizations, as well as Keep Tahoe Blue and local utilities and planning agencies, work together to prepare a variety of learning opportunities beyond the walls of STHS.

The students gathered water table and forest data from Blackwood Canyon, following up on the forest service’s project repairing the river by measuring the banks of the river and water flow. They learned about indicator insect species and their relationship to the health of the environment on the Truckee River. They provided vital watering and cone collection for our precious sugar pine trees with the Sugar Pine Foundation. All in a day’s work, er classwork.

Kinnett recently escorted students on a 4-day overnight expedition, called the El Dorado Forestry Challenge. The students applied what they had learned in the field to compete against 140 other students from throughout the state to collect data for the American River Conservancy’s Wells Preserve. They were in the wilderness with only their wits (and a host of chaperones) to protect them. The Tahoe Science pathway has been supported and funded by a significant grant from the California Department of Education called “The Strong Workforce Grant.” It enabled the CTE program at STHS to purchase outdoor equipment & gear (from backpacks to water filters to fishing equipment) and vehicles to provide field trip transportation for students as they learn the preparation and application of these varied forestry skills.

Whether hiking through nearby forest areas, fishing off a chartered boat, fly fishing in the Truckee River, climbing the walls of Blue Granite Climbing gym, or at their desks at STHS, the CTE Tahoe Science class is hard at work training with the skills needed for the current workforce in industries from forestry, to firefighting, to hydrology, and environmental science/engineering.

Special Thanks to the many partners of CTE Tahoe Science:

~Andrew Lubrano from NorCal Charters
~Gianna Aveni and Brad Leavers at Blue Granite Climbing Gym
~John, Taylor, and Jacob at Tahoe Fly Fishing
~Maria Mircheva at Sugar Pine Foundation
~Frank Cody of Cody’s Trees
~Adilene De la Torre, Alondra Gomez, and Lanette Rangel at The US Forest Service
~MIchelle Mclean and David Murray at Tahoe Regional Conservation District
~Martin Goldberg and Nathan Lester and Lake Valley Fire Department
~Ashley Phillips at SWEP (Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships)