Cografi Bilgi Sistemleri

Cleanup at Shevlin January 18, 2009

Storms left a mess of the popular park, and crews dont know when it will reopen. But the area has become a classroom for COCC”s forestry and other students as they help survey the damage.
When Paul Stell first visited Shevlin Park after the windstorm that swept through Central Oregon on New Year’s Day, the sight was both awe-inspiring and familiar.

Stell, the natural resources manager for the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District, said it looked like a giant game of pickup sticks — hundreds and hundreds of bent and broken trees, some piled three and four deep, some flattened across roads and picnic tables, and still others upright but leaning precariously against their neighbors. And the more Stell looked, the more he found.

Citing safety concerns, the park district closed the popular 650-acre park along Tumalo Creek on Jan. 2. The cleanup is still in its early stages, and officials don’t know when the park will reopen.

But for students in the forestry and geographic information systems programs at Central Oregon Community College, the damage at Shevlin Park is an opportunity.

Associate professor Ron Boldenow said the programs have long used the park as a classroom, with students using GPS devices to map Tumalo Creek, the trails or the picnic benches. Boldenow was planning on doing the same this year, but when classes resumed Jan. 4, the park was closed.

He contacted Stell to see if there was some way he could get his students into the park.

“I called Paul, and he said, ‘I don’t mind, if you’re careful,’” Boldenow recalled. “I asked, ‘Do you need any help?’ And he just said, ‘Oh, my.’” (more…)