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OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE

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  • Birds: Learn All About Them – In-Person 
  • Item Number: W25NAT128A
    Dates: 2/3/2025 - 3/3/2025
    Times: 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
    Days: M
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  78
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room E
    Instructor: Shannon Rio
    What are birds saying? What are birds doing? This class is all about being curious about birds and the natural world around us. Because photographs can tell powerful stories, they are used in each class both to inform and to enjoy. Identifying local birds and getting to know them is a focus for this class. Each term this course is taught with a different emphasis on birding in the Rogue Valley and the region, with new content continually added. Since this is being taught during winter term, the focus will include birds that winter here. No prior knowledge is necessary. Class interaction is encouraged but not required. The invitation is to connect with the natural world and find ways to give back.
  • Fungi: The Mysterious Kingdom – In-Person 
  • Item Number: W25NAT304A
    Dates: 1/23/2025 - 2/27/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 6
    Maximum Enrollment:  78
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room E
    Instructor: John Kloetzel
    Our general encounters with fungi can be positive, as in foods (mushrooms or yeast in cooking/brewing) or negative, as in diseases (athlete’s foot; leaf molds and other plant pests). Yet the importance of this major kingdom of life is so much more than this. Recent popular explorations of fungi (Merlin Sheldrake’s “Entangled Life,” “Finding the Mother Tree,” the Louie Schwartzberg documentary “Fantastic Fungi”) have stimulated a growing public interest in fungi. This course, primarily lectures with directed discussion, will serve as an introduction to these organisms. Topics will include: What is a fungus? How many kinds are there? Where are they found? What are their lifestyles? How do they reproduce? What roles do fungi play in the environment? How do fungi interact with living plants and animals (from symbioses to diseases)? New terms need to be understood (hyphae, mycelia, mycorrhizae) as we venture into this mysterious kingdom living mostly beneath our feet.
  • Hawks! – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25NAT135A
    Dates: 1/7/2025 - 1/21/2025
    Times: 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
    Days: Tu
    Sessions: 3
    Maximum Enrollment:  34
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room A
    Instructor: Dick Ashford
    These fascinating creatures have captured our imaginations in ways that few other bird groups do; easily seen (but tough to identify), they push our primal poetic buttons. This course is a PowerPoint presentation with lecture and discussion that will examine the natural history of diurnal raptors — what makes a hawk a hawk, anyhow? There is more than one answer! Topics will include taxonomy, anatomy, and the raptorial lifestyle that defines these beautiful animals, as well as investigations into hawks’ relationship with humans. This is not a course in identification, but at the end of the course you are guaranteed to be a hawk enthusiast!
  • The Role of Community in Wildfire Risk Reduction – Online (Hybrid)
  • Item Number: W25NAT305
    Dates: 1/23/2025 - 2/27/2025
    Times: 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 6
    Maximum Enrollment:  34
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: Charisse Sydoriak

    The instructor is a volunteer working on Ashland’s update to its Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The purpose of the plan is to keep you safe and our community whole when wildfire affects Ashland. In this course, students will engage with community members drafting the plan and have an opportunity to improve the plan before it is finalized in April 2025. Conversations and exercises will include the following topics:

    1. Assessing community risk

    2. Reducing business and rental property vulnerabilities

    3. Public health and safe evacuations

    4. Inclusive community risk reduction

    5. Maintaining Ashland forests and water supply

    6. Wildfire recovery and implementing a sustainable plan

    NOTE: While this course focuses on Ashland, the discussion topics have broad applicability that may be useful in any community. Participation is strongly recommended because several exercises will be done in small groups
  • The Role of Community in Wildfire Risk Reduction – In-Person (Hybrid)
  • Item Number: W25NAT305A
    Dates: 1/23/2025 - 2/27/2025
    Times: 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 6
    Maximum Enrollment:  34
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room A
    Instructor: Charisse Sydoriak

    The instructor is a volunteer working on Ashland’s update to its Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The purpose of the plan is to keep you safe and our community whole when wildfire affects Ashland. In this course, students will engage with community members drafting the plan and have an opportunity to improve the plan before it is finalized in April 2025. Conversations and exercises will include the following topics:

    1. Assessing community risk

    2. Reducing business and rental property vulnerabilities

    3. Public health and safe evacuations

    4. Inclusive community risk reduction

    5. Maintaining Ashland forests and water supply

    6. Wildfire recovery and implementing a sustainable plan

    NOTE: While this course focuses on Ashland, the discussion topics have broad applicability that may be useful in any community. Participation is strongly recommended because several exercises will be done in small groups
  • Wilderness – In-Person 
  • Item Number: W25NAT117A
    Dates: 1/7/2025 - 1/28/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Tu
    Sessions: 4
    Maximum Enrollment:  34
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room C
    Instructor: John Schuyler
    Wilderness — what does that term mean to you? Is it your un-mowed backyard? Is it an area large enough for a two-week backpack trip without seeing a road, building, or other symbol of modern society? Does the word even have meaning to the indigenous peoples that stewarded North America prior to Euro-American conquest? In 1964, the U.S. made the decision through federal legislation to not develop every acre of our country, but instead to create a system of preserves where natural processes are allowed to function. This course looks at the development and history of wilderness as a simple descriptive, yet highly subjective, notion. Included are the visionaries who pushed for setting aside some of our wildlands. Managing wilderness (an oxymoron?) is not an easy task with climate change, fires, and overuse. Does the wilderness system have the political support that it once enjoyed? How much is enough? Classes will include lectures, slides, videos, guest speakers, and time for discussions.

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