We made it across the Golden Gate Bridge and fortuitously stumbled upon an awesome shot for a photo op. As we made our way around the bend the students spotted Alcatraz, which they were excited about because they've been studying up. Our campsite for our first few days in CA is a little north of San Francsico in a town called Petaluma. To get to San Francisco you need to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. When we woke up this morning, it was 75 degrees and sunny at our campsite and all the way down to the bridge. Once you come around a corner and see the bridge there is a very prominent haze or massive cloud hovering over San Francisco. It is rare that you can even see the bridge most days. This constant cloud over SF keeps the city at an average 65 degrees all year. Thi is because of the surrounding topography. SF is situated on the coast with a pile of mountains surrounding it on all sides. The wind blows ocean mist into the sky, it bounces off the mountains behond SF, and comes back down right over the city as a large blanket of overcast. Many people, including my students, had the misconception that CA is tropical. It is actually very dry. palm trees are not native mor are they common. If there are any at all, they got here through the hands of people. The dominant habitat type is coniferous forest, which includes plants like pine trees. Learning about the this was their first lesson in ecology.
We are now at Pier 39 checking out the basking seals and sea lions. The California Coastline has sea lions, seals, sea otters and even elephant seals at the Farralon Islands off the coast of CA a few miles. These species all exist here because of the rocky shoreline and kelp forests. No coastline in the United States is exactly like the one we are looking at now. The students will learn more about this in a couple days when we visit Monterey Bay, and I will post more about what they will be learning on coastal ecology later in the week.
Next stop: China Town for lunch at Chef Jia's.
We are now at Pier 39 checking out the basking seals and sea lions. The California Coastline has sea lions, seals, sea otters and even elephant seals at the Farralon Islands off the coast of CA a few miles. These species all exist here because of the rocky shoreline and kelp forests. No coastline in the United States is exactly like the one we are looking at now. The students will learn more about this in a couple days when we visit Monterey Bay, and I will post more about what they will be learning on coastal ecology later in the week.
Next stop: China Town for lunch at Chef Jia's.