First Friday: Into the Redwoods

What lives in Oakland’s redwoods? 
Friday, March 4
6-10 p.m.
$15 adults, $10 kids/seniors, $5 members.  

Get up close and personal with live appearances by ladybugs, newts and banana slugs and short films of them with KQED’s Deep Look nature series.   Discover the mycelium network with the film Fantastic Fungi. Experience live insects with entomologist Ralph Washington Jr., take a guided hike in the Redwood Regional Park with a naturalist and meet the volunteer groups dedicated to beautifying and restoring our parks. 

Schedule

7 p.m., 8:30 p.m. KQED Deep Look: Exploring the Redwood Forest, Studio 3

Join KQED’s very own nature series Deep Look for an evening exploring the redwood forest! Deep Look’s four-minute videos about small animals and plants are filmed very close up in beautiful ultra-high-definition, to give viewers a look at the natural world that they rarely get to experience. We will screen Deep Look episodes about banana slugs, ladybugs and newts, animals found in redwood forests. And we’ll show a bonus, surprise episode! After the screening, you’ll get to see some of these animals live in a special exhibit. Note: The screening and Q&A will take place at 7:00 p.m., and repeat at 8:30 p.m.  

Deep Look is created by KQED, the PBS and NPR affiliate in San Francisco, and is presented on the PBS Digital Studios YouTube network: YouTube.com/KQEDDeepLook. New videos are released every three weeks. Subscribe and never miss a video!   

Featuring

Gabriela Quirós, Coordinating Producer Deep Look, KQED

Gabriela Quirós is Deep Look’s coordinating producer and has been working on the series since 2015. Gabriela has won numerous awards for her science reporting. Her video about how mosquitoes use six needles to suck our blood won a Webby ‘People’s Voice’ award and has over 20 million views. Gabriela grew up in Costa Rica and came to the Bay Area to study documentary filmmaking.

Michael Charnofsky, Naturalist East Bay Regional Park District

Michael Charnofsky became a Naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District in 2006.  He loves interpreting about the natural world and inspiring people to learn more.  For fun he enjoys native-plant gardening, visiting the desert in spring, and exploring the world with his six-year-old son.

Trent Pearce, Naturalist East Bay Regional Park District

Trent Pearce, has been both learning and teaching California natural history for 15 years. He is an interpretive naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District, who leads guided walks, gives lectures, creates educational posters, panels and videos, and tries to satisfy the burning question of “so what?” for the general public. He has a degree in forestry and recreation from the University of Tennessee.

8 p.m. Fantastic Fungi, The Theater

Fantastic Fungi is a consciousness-shifting film about the mycelium network that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet, an underground network that can heal and save our planet. Through the eyes of renowned scientists and mycologists like Paul Stamets, best-selling authors like Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone, Andrew Weil, and others, we become aware of the beauty, intelligence, and solutions that fungi kingdom offers in response to some of our most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges. 

6-9 p.m. Community Resources for Science, Rotunda

Hikes at 6:30pm, 7:15pm, 8:00pm – limited capacity, sign up in the Rotunda

The Community Resources for Science invites you to take a short 30-minute guided hike this evening in Oakland’s redwood ecosystem. We’ll explore the park’s history and how the plants and animals are uniquely adapted to our Mediterranean style climate. We’ll experience the sights, sounds and smells of the evening forest and enjoy the peace and solitude of this unique and special place.

6-9 p.m. Friends of Joaquin Miller Park, Rotunda

Catch up with Friends of Joaquin Miller Park volunteers in the Rotunda, to find out about the Oakland Park that is home to the largest urban redwood forest in the world! We have many exciting projects in the works that we can tell you about and a short (2 minute) survey to get your feedback on park issues. Learn about all our partner organizations and find out how YOU can become a “Friend.” We love our park and would love to hear what you love about it, too.

The Friends of Joaquin Miller Park are hikers, mountain bikers, equestrians, dog owners, cross country runners, historians, writers, and neighbors — dedicated to maintaining, preserving, and enhancing the rich natural legacy of this area for all residents and visitors of Oakland to enjoy, following in the footsteps of the Lisjan Ohlone people and the late 19th Century poet and environmentalist Joaquin Miller, who lived on and loved this place in times past.

6-9 p.m. Friends of Sausal Creek, Pallid Manzanita restoration, Rotunda

Our mission at Friends of Sausal Creek is to restore, maintain, and protect the Sausal Creek Watershed. We educate future generations, involve the community in local environmental stewardship, and collaborate with agencies and other nonprofits to have a positive impact on the local ecosystem. Come check out our table at First Friday to learn more about the native plants of Sausal Creek including the endemic pallid manzanita which can be spotted below the Chabot Space and Science Center!

6:30 p.m. Bay Aerial & Solar Quest, Planetarium

Take a supersonic spin around Bay Area skies! This ten-minute flight of fancy begins at our home port, Chabot, and covers a lot of ground……from the sky above! To Mount Diablo in the east, the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south, Point Reyes up north, and back home again across the East Bay. 

 Solar Quest is a short 10 min show about the lifecycle of the Sun. 

6:30-9:30 p.m. Live Creature Exploration with East Bay Regional Park District, Studio 3

Naturalists from EBRPD, Michael Charnofsky and Trent Pearce, will be displaying live banana slugs and newts and speaking as part of the Deep Look program.

The East Bay Regional Park District is a system of beautiful parklands in Alameda and Contra Costa counties to the east of San Francisco. The system comprises 73 parks spanning across 125,000 acres; 1,250 miles of trails; 55 miles of shoreline. We manage and preserve natural and cultural resources for all to enjoy and protect. The regional parks are ideal for healthful recreation and environmental education.

Featuring

Michael Charnofsky, Naturalist East Bay Regional Park District

Michael Charnofsky became a Naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District in 2006.  He loves interpreting about the natural world and inspiring people to learn more.  For fun he enjoys native-plant gardening, visiting the desert in spring, and exploring the world with his six-year-old son.

Trent Pearce, Naturalist East Bay Regional Park District

Trent Pearce, has been both learning and teaching California natural history for 15 years. He is an interpretive naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District, who leads guided walks, gives lectures, creates educational posters, panels and videos, and tries to satisfy the burning question of “so what?” for the general public. He has a degree in forestry and recreation from the University of Tennessee.

6:30-9:30 p.m. Six-Legged Stars with Ralph Washington Jr., Mezzanine

The area around Chabot has some of Oakland’s most popular trails. In addition to comfort and serenity, hikes in the redwoods offer a chance to encounter interesting wildlife. The convergent lady beetle, the cone spittlebug, the little white lichen moth, and the variegated meadow hawk are a few wonderful examples. Come learn about the peculiar habits of local insect life and appreciate how we can often nourish our curiosity by looking at the ground just as much as we can by gazing at the night sky.

Ralph Washington, Jr. has a master’s degree in entomology and is a three-time national and international champion of entomological natural history trivia. He has been an enthusiastic student of arthropods since his early childhood. One of his favorite lessons from studying the lives of small creatures is the reminder that although life can often be hard, at least he isn’t a termite getting paralyzed by a toxic fart. 

7:30 p.m. Zeiss Astronomy Presentation, Planetarium.

Explore the cosmos as a Chabot Astronomer leads you through the galaxy using a Zeiss Universarium Mark VIII Star Projector. This recently restored Zeiss projector uses advanced fiber-optics to project stars with astonishing clarity.

7:30-10 p.m. Telescope Makers Workshop with Eastbay Astronomical Society

Open to all ages, the Telescope Makers’ Workshop is an all-volunteer group committed to helping people build their own telescopes. Drop in to see what they are up to. 

The Eastbay Astronomical Society serves Bay Area residents and astronomy enthusiasts with events, classes, and Oakland’s premier views of the universe.  

7:30-10:30 p.m. Telescope Viewings, Observatory Deck

Join Chabot astronomers on the Observatory Deck for a free telescope viewing! Weather permitting, this is a chance to explore stars, planets and more through Chabot’s historic telescopes.  

9 p.m. Forward to the Moon, Planetarium