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The objective of pre-field preparation activities is for your youth to learn basic concepts about mapping, then use Oregon Explorer and other online map resources to learn about topography, ecology, wildlife, or other features of the field site prior to exploration. These activities can fulfill a wide range of Oregon Department of Education content standards, including science, geography (social sciences), mathematics, English language arts, and others.
Here are sample pre-field activities you can do that relate to the ACCF site.
- Clues from the ACCF map. This simple exercise requires only a print map of the ACCF site, available via our brochure or online. Depending on the ability level of your youth, you may wish to briefly explain the map legend, scale, and north arrow. Then set them to work on tasks such as the following (or see here for a downloadable draft including questions such as the below):
- What's the shortest way, using roads or trails only, to get from the beginning of Cedar Grove Trail to the intersection of Fern Draw and Back Ridge trails? What's the longest way? Your youth can readily calculate distances using string and the map scale.
- What's the elevation of the highest and the lowest point on the ACCF site? The map includes 10' contours and marked elevations every 100 feet. This activity can also lead to finding the steepest slopes on the site, and discussing implications of slope and aspect (the direction a slope faces) for soils, vegetation, and wildlife.
- If you'd like to situate ACCF in the context of the Alder-Jordan watershed, here are some map resources at the watershed scale that may be of help, including a recent air photo with key features, a 1939 air photo for comparison, and land use-cover maps for the present and for 1939.
- If you'd like to prepare students to take GPS readings and mark them directly on a map (number line skills!), here is a gridded map in decimal degrees.
- ACCF virtual tour and treasure hunt. This exercise requires online access to the Tour ACCF page; all your computers need is the common Flash browser plug-in. The activity involves five panoramic images taken from different locations on the ACCF site; each panorama includes five items for students to identify, with points awarded (and additional information provided) for each item located. Depending on the ability of your youth, you may wish to guide them through the exercise or have them do it on their own; here is a worksheet you may use as an overview, and here is a worksheet students may complete for each of the five locations. As variations, you could do tasks such as the following:
- Compare the five panorama sites with the ACCF map to predict vegetation and habitat before your youth do the virtual tour. Click here for a special ACCF map that includes approximate locations of all five pano sites.
- Do a followup quiz or pano comparison essay to assess knowledge mastery. These tasks could be done in analog format, or online using your own page on the Oregon Explorers Moodle site!
- Google Earth tour of the Alder-Jordan watershed and ACCF site. This exercise uses the freely available Google Earth online mapping application, and requires a computer with online access. As followup to the ACCF map and virtual tour exercises above and to situate ACCF in the Alder-Jordan watershed, you may wish for your youth to download and launch the following Google Earth files for a great 3-dimensional view:
- The Alder-Jordan watershed. Simply download and view in Google Earth!
- The ACCF site. Same as above. This is also a nice file to use when locating Google Earth placemarks on the ACCF site such as where photos were taken (see post-field followup activities).
- There's also a cool tour of the Alder-Jordan watershed that runs from its lowest point at the mouth of Jordan Creek to the highest point, Tellurium Peak. To run it, select Tools > Play Tour, or in newer versions of Google Earth, click the Play Tour button below the Places list (it looks like this:
 ).
- Map ACCF wildlife using Oregon Explorer. This online exercise, found on the Oregon Explorers Moodle site, utilizes the Umpqua Basin Explorer to identify the 6th-field watershed surrounding ACCF, then the Oregon Wildlife Explorer to predict all wildlife expected to inhabit this watershed. It consists of two steps:
- Map your watershed! in interactive lesson or printable handout format. Youth learn how to use online mapping tools, then map the 6th-field watershed surrounding the ACCF site.
- Find your wildlife! in interactive lesson or printable handout format. Youth search for the watershed in Wildlife Explorer, which yields an informative, interactive list of expected wildlife; click here for a screenshot of information on the American beaver, Castor canadensis, and here for the start of the list for the 6th-field watershed surrounding ACCF. (The 6th-field watershed for ACCF is the first one you obtain under O; it's O'Shea Creek, #171003020508.)
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