CEI Brings Educational and Connective Components to T-MOBILE Copeland Creek Trail Improvement Grant
A new grant from T-Mobile will help SSU highlight and enhance the Copeland Creek Trail, a path that passes through the natural landscapes on SSU’s campus. CEI is bringing its Education Into Action model to the project to help manage partners and contextualize information and activities for the public, as part of its Creeks in Common initiative, which fosters collaborative opportunities to address real-world environmental challenges.
“The T-Mobile grant is all about education and community engagement,” said CEI Program and Outreach Specialist Nicole Myers. “CEI is creating signage with a series of QR codes, each providing nature-based education and activities on exercise, mental health, watershed science, natural history, and geographic location.”
Each QR code will go to a webpage managed by a different group at Sonoma State.
Kinesiology professors Yonjoong Ryuh & Poram Choi are overseeing the grant, and Kinesiology will manage the exercises page – focusing on a different movement practice in each spot. Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and Psychology will manage the mental health information, including meditation / forest bathing – i.e. using nature as a way to calm the mind. There will also be a QR code that goes to a map showing people where they are on the trail and introducing them to what is in their immediate vicinity.
“CEI will be working on the QR code that’s more environmental science in nature,” Myers said. CEI will create “a web page that includes natural history information about the rocks, plants, and animals along the creek and what else is around you.” A final QR will focus on water, and link to a project run by a class in which students are both doing research and compiling resources related to the Copeland Creek watershed.
The signs will be placed along the path near Rancho Cotati High School and Sonoma State – but the entirety of Copeland Creek runs from Sonoma Mountain and through CEI’s Fairfield Osborn Preserve, across campus, and out to the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which drains into the Russian River.
Myers said thanks to the QR codes, people can engage in any way they want to while on the trail.
“Providing educational information helps people to make use of the trail in any capacity they wish as they walk just feet away from Copeland Creek,” Myers said. “Maybe one day they want to go for the mental health aspect of it, and the next day they want to exercise, and the next day they want to hear about the birds. They get to do all those things in one place, which means everyone gets to keep coming back and continuing to learn and support what we have in common.”
CEI Director Kerry Wininger said this project is already getting a positive response and prompting community engagement. Groups on campus see it underway and come to organizers to share ideas for how to contribute.
“It’s wonderful how this has inspired the campus community to make the creek corridor more attractive to the community and applicable to students in an academic context,” Wininger said. “In addition to those departments leading the charge, others have participated in their own ways: Art students creating clay sculptures of native fauna to sit atop the sign posts, Biology students helping those art students ensure the animals portrayed are true to form, and Engineering students interested in bringing a user survey device onto the trail. It’s incredible how this project has pulled the campus together.”
In addition to the signage work, a connector trail is currently being built from SSU to Crane Creek Regional Park to allow people to walk that full portion. This will allow access for more community members and provide a longer hike that connects the area’s urban and rural settings.
“The dream for this is that we have more people making use of the trail and enjoying the native plant garden, and as a community really feeling like they’re connected to nature and the watershed – connected to Copeland Creek – and recognizing how water is important to everyone. Hopefully this inspires people to take better care of the environment on individual and community levels.”
The project is expected to be completed by August 2026, with an opening celebration for the regional and campus community.
SSU’s Center for Environmental Inquiry is dedicated to environmental research, creative inquiry, and education that directly addresses environmental challenges of the North Bay. Since its founding in 2007, CEI has worked with regional partners to preserve the planet through outdoor learning at its three preserves, and multidisciplinary real-world projects throughout Sonoma and Mendocino Counties.
Creeks in Common is a CEI-run initiative for watershed research & planning that uses Copeland Creek as a collaborative urban demonstration site for the wider region. It harnesses the power of students and universities to catalyze regional resilience. Partners include the City of Rohnert Park, Russian River Watershed Association, Sonoma Water, Russian River Confluence, North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Sonoma Mountain Preservation, and many others.
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