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OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE

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Nature   

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  • From Fire to Flowers for Pollinators & People – In-Person
  • Item Number: S25NAT307A
    Dates: 5/22/2025 - 5/29/2025
    Times: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 2
    Maximum Enrollment:  18
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room B
    Instructor: Kristina Lefever
    This course is full. Please click the "Add to Waitlist" button. Please note: You must be signed in and be a current member (or have a membership in your cart) to access the "Add to Waitlist" button. 
    In both an in-person class and a field trip, students will learn about our native ecology and how and why to incorporate native plants into urban landscapes to better support our native pollinators, birds and other wildlife. Design considerations will be presented, along with some of the best native plants for gardens. Students will have the opportunity to tour real-life examples of native pollinator gardens planted through the From Fire to Flowers Pollinator Gardens program to restore residential areas devastated by the Almeda Fire in 2020 and to provide pollinator connectivity for the Rogue Buzzway. Students will be encouraged to incorporate some of this information into their own landscapes. No prior experience or knowledge is required.
 

  • Springtime Birding in the Rogue Valley – In-Person
  • Item Number: S25NAT136A
    Dates: 5/2/2025 - 5/30/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: F
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  78
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room E
    Instructor: Shannon Rio
    This course is oversubscribed. The waitlist is full and the course is now closed. 
 

  • What Makes the Galápagos Special? – In-Person
  • Item Number: S25NAT316A
    Dates: 5/6/2025 - 5/20/2025
    Times: 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
    Days: Tu
    Sessions: 3
    Maximum Enrollment:  53
    Seats Available:  1
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room D
    Instructor: Tony Davis
    The Galápagos Islands are celebrated for several things: unique and unusual fauna, creatures unafraid of humans, a catalyst for Darwin’s theory of natural selection and a remote, relatively pristine environment. What caused them to become so special? Are they unique in this regard? Perhaps there are, or were, other places in the world that are equally remarkable. We’ll examine the factors that have made the Galápagos what they are and compare them to other archipelagoes on a multidisciplinary journey through geology, geography, climate, biology and human history.
 

  • Engaging With Nature: Walk, Photo, Paint – In-Person
  • Item Number: S25NAT313A
    Dates: 4/11/2025 - 5/9/2025
    Times: 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Days: F
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  16
    Building: Field Trip
    Room: Field Trip
    Instructor: Victoria Leo, Rick Baird
    Registration for this course is closed. 
    Exploring and engaging with nature delivers powerful boosts to physical and mental health, both when it is happening and when nature is reexperienced in memory and through photos and art. On different days and times, learners will explore multiple locations in the local area that they can also enjoy on their own schedules. Instructors will accommodate both brisk striding and ambling, but learners must be able to walk safely for at least a mile. Instructors will share suggestions for composing emotionally engaging nature scenes with cameras and smartphones at each location. The joys of nature can also be reexperienced through created artworks in watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, collage and other media, which the instructors will advise on during active walks and via email. The course includes a kickoff Zoom meeting to answer questions about the course and the tools that will be used for enthusiastically engaging with nature. 
     
    NOTE: Dogs are not allowed on the walks. Learners must be able to walk easily for at least a mile on occasionally unpaved paths. This course will require signing a liability waiver.
 

  • Fungi: The Mysterious Kingdom – Online
  • Item Number: S25NAT315
    Dates: 5/9/2025 - 6/6/2025
    Times: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
    Days: F
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  299
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: John Kloetzel
    Registration for this course is closed. 
    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. Recent popular explorations of fungi — Merlin Sheldrake’s “Entangled Life,” Suzanne Simard’s “Finding the Mother Tree” and Louie Schwartzberg’s documentary “Fantastic Fungi” — have stimulated a growing public interest in fungi. This course, primarily lecture 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 for the most part beneath our feet.
 

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