Last year, seven Benicia High School students joined science teacher Emily Hudson to participate in the Santa Cruz Forestry Challenge, a competitive event held at Redwood Christian Park in Boulder Creek. After three nights of learning how to identify and measure trees, becoming familiar with forestry tools and creating a script for an application to provide self-guided tours of the area, Benicia High students placed fourth and fifth. Not bad for a set of students that had never participated.

This year, 12 students took part in the challenge from Nov. 16 to 19 at the same location. Out of 117 students from 14 Northern California schools, four Benicia High School students took first place.

As the adviser, Hudson was thrilled with the outcome.

“We were overjoyed with winning first place,” she said. “There were a lot of schools there that usually do very well and are more around forests than Benicia.”

Although last year was Benicia High’s first year participating, Hudson herself is no stranger to these competitions. She used to bring students to participate when she taught at Franklin High School in Elk Grove. Of the 12 participants this year, two— Mara Guerin and Ciara Roybal— returned from the previous year. With a larger number of students this year, fellow science teacher Kevin Sinats also served as a faculty adviser, which Hudson says was very helpful.

“Since we had 12 students go this year, we were able to divide some of the different tasks between the two of us when we were there,” she said.

The focus this year was a redwood forest following a harvest and how it has been able to grow and sustain itself. The students had a variety of tasks to complete over the course of four days. The first day was spent researching four questions dealing with the current standing volume of trees, the rate the trees are growing, the volume that is growing on the trees each year and whether or not the stand is sustainable, i.e., if it is growing more than it is being cut.

The second day involved a field trip to the harvested area, where the students collected data and calculated the current stocking level of the forest, where they predicted future growth.

“They did this by doing several surveys, counting the number of trees left, then measured the diameter of the tree and finally calculated the Basal area, which gives you density of the forest,” Hudson said.

They also spent the evening preparing for their presentations.

On the third day, the students did a field test on forest management. This involved measuring the height and diameter, identifying the species of trees, examining how much damage bark beetles have done and testing their past and current logging history. The students completed work on their presentations and had a hike and campfire that night.
During several of the meetings, registered forester Bill Snyder came out to provide advice.

“His insight was very helpful,” Hudson said.

On the final day, students delivered their presentations to a panel of three judges. The grade for the presentation made up 40 percent of the final score, while the field test made up 60 percent. Out of 250 points, one of Benicia High School’s teams— consisting of Forestry Challenge veterans Guerin and Roybal and newcomers Amaya Clark and Sara Luebkert— scored 206.3, which was higher than any team from any school that participated.

“This was my first year doing Forestry Challenge and I had such a memorable learning experience,” Clark said in a statement. “I can’t wait until next year!”

Hudson said the trip was a good bonding experience, not only for the students themselves but also for her and her students.

“My favorite part of the process is really getting to know my students,” she said. “I spend two to three months with them for at least three days a week. Some of these students I don’t have in class, so this is another way for me to reach students and connect with them.”

“Also, I love the fact that for some students, this is an eye-opening experience and they tend to move into natural resources because of it,” she added.

Additionally, it was a good learning experience.

“The biggest thing I hope students took away from this experience is, yes, this is hard work, but it was also lots of fun,” Hudson said. “All the students got along so well, and it really just fills my heart.”