Howdy from the staff at Chabot Space & Science Center in the Oakland Hills! Chabot works to encourage students to actively address climate issues within the Bay Area community. We’ll be dropping by ACE occasionally to share some interesting facts, zany stories, and conversations regarding climate change and how it all relates to you!

Hi ACE Friends!

My name is Eric Havel, and I’m the Education Manager here at Chabot Space & Science Center. I’ve been working at Chabot for 14 years, and I have nearly 20 years of experience in the field of informal (meaning “out-of-school time”) education. I have a degree in Environmental Science, I love camping in the redwood forest, and my career is teaching about science. So I guess all that makes me a bonafide treehugger! So it probably won’t surprise you if I share a few things here related to climate change and its potential impacts on California’s majestic redwood forest. I’d also like to tell you about a great research project that you might like to get involved in with Chabot.

You might already know that redwoods have been around for millions of years. They used to be spread throughout the entire northern hemisphere, with significant population stands on three continents – North America, Europe and Asia. Currently, though, their range is much more limited. There are three species of redwoods today: the coast redwood, the giant sequoia, and the dawn redwood. Our own golden state of California is lucky enough to be the only native home to two of these species: the coast redwood and giant sequoia. Well, okay. Technically there are a few native coast redwoods that are just barely found along the coastal southwestern border of Oregon. But we’ve got most of them!

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