Humboldt State University in ref

January 11, 2010 (preceding first day of FOR 480): Program Orientation 2-5 PM

January 12-14, 2010 and March 23-25, 2010: FORESTRY 480 Professional Writing for Natural Resources Sciences (4 semester units). Forestry 480 aims to help students with the thinking and writing processes associated with clearly communicating technical information of a scientific nature. This course will meet for three days at the beginning (January 2010), followed by 10 weeks of interactive remote assignments, and three days (March 2010) at the end.

Instructor: Christopher Lee/Jeff Gunn
Location: Wildland Fire Training Center, McClellan, CA

March 15-19, 2010: Forestry 210 – Forest Measurements (4 semester units) Class topics include: Surveying including angle and distance measurement, leveling and traverse. Public land survey. Topographic map reading and construction. Tree and forest measurements under field conditions. Math and excel refreshers will be included.

Instructor: Dale Oliver and Chris Edgar
Location: Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

May 18, 2010: Excel refresher. The one day Excel refresher needed for the Wildland studies program.

May 19-26, 2010: FORESTRY 307 California's Forests & Woodlands (3 semester units). Class topics include: Factors affecting distribution, perpetuation, and health of California's forests and woodlands. Field identification of northern California trees and shrubs. Class will meet on weekends.

June 2-9, 2010: FORESTRY 321. Fire Ecology (3 semester units). Fire as an ecosystem and physical process. Fire history, fire effects, fire regimes; interactions with abiotic and biotic ecosystem components; managing fire in California bioregions. Class will meet on weekends.

January 20-26, 2011: FORESTRY 423 Wildland Fuels Management (3 semester units). Managing wildland fuels in forests and rangelands. Advanced understanding of fuel dynamics, management strategies, and challenges facing fuels managers in fire-prone landscapes. Quantitative analysis of the effects of fuels treatments.
Instructor: Phil Omi
Location: Classroom TBD - Wildland Fire Training Center, McClellan, CA

January 27, 2011 and May 19-20, 2011: FORESTRY 479 Fire Capstone (4 semester units). A forestry-related project, produced either by a team or by an individual, culminating in a public presentation. This class will meet for one day (Jan 2011) in McClellan following the FOR 423 course. The final presentations will be scheduled for May 2011 in Arcata, CA.

April 28, 2011through May 4, 2011: FORESTRY 422. Wildland Fire Use (3 semester units). Applying prescribed fire in land management. Fire effects, prescription burning objectives, benefits and costs, plans, prescriptions, firing patterns, burn monitoring and evaluation, and smoke management.

Total unit load = 24 semester units (20 units of upper division Forestry, and 4 units of lower division Forestry)

Academic advising will be provided by John Stuart of Humboldt State University. Students are encouraged to consult with the academic advisor prior to starting the program.

Session 4 of the Certificate of Study in Wildland Fire Management is a stand-alone program for those wishing to enhance or upgrade their knowledge and skills in fire ecology, managing wildland fuels, prescribed fire, and fire behavior. The curriculum has been revised to provide the 24 semester units in forestry that are required to meet the educational requirements for employment with various agencies and companies that manage wildlands. This program is specifically designed to provide a focused education and to enable students to meet the educational requirements for the GS-401 Fire Management Specialist job series.

Upon successful completion of this coursework, students will receive a Certificate of Study in Wildland Fire Management from Humboldt State University (HSU). This certificate program will provide needed skills for those students interested in wildland fire management. Academic advising for students will be provided to students by faculty and staff at Humboldt State University. The academic advisor will provide advice on prerequisites, administrative issues with the university (e.g. issuance of grades, dealing with incompletes, enrollment issues, etc.), and will provide broader academic advice for those students interested in pursuing further education. All records and associated transcripts will be administered through HSU.

Pre-requisites for admission to some of the courses in the program are a working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and college level algebra. Excel training and a math refresher are included in FOR 210, Forest Measurements; it is expected that everyone comes with a working knowledge of Word. The algebra skills covered in the FOR 210 Forest Measurements Class are as follows:

8. concepts of expression, set, variable, function, graph, equality, equations, and identity;

Students who have passed a college level trigonometry class or a college level statistics course would meet the math pre-requisite. All students are required to take FOR 210, the Forest Measurements class and the Excel refresher. For further information on pre-requisites contact John Stuart (jds2@humboldt.edu).