Jacquelynn “Jackie” Helberg Schenck was born July 19, 1933 to Gladys V. and Vernon Leroy Hough. March 23, 2021, at 87 years of age, she passed on to be with her Lord and Savior. We are certain she is celebrating with her family and friends who passed on before her. 

Jackie was born in Sanger, Calif. In 1939 her dad packed a huge truck, along with his wife and six children, and drove over 500 miles to Orleans, Calif. to live and work at a gold mine. “Quite a switch from the city life! No paved roads, no electricity, no running water or indoor plumbing…”  In 1942 the family moved to Scotia, and in 1945 they moved to Eureka. Jackie graduated from Eureka High School.

In 1951, she married her high school sweetheart, Richard “Dick” Helberg. Together they raised four children, helped build and faithfully attended Calvary Lutheran Church, owned a business (United Radio and TV Sales & Repair), built their dream house, and owned a few rentals and properties. In 1962, when Dick became seriously ill, Jackie went to work for Safeway. In 1972, she was injured on the job and was not able to return to Safeway, so she began selling Avon. In 1985, Dick passed away after years of battling numerous health issues.

In 1988, she met Jerry Schenck at the Eureka Bridge Club and they were married in 1989. They enjoyed playing bridge and going to tournaments (she was a Silver Life Master with the American Contract Bridge League). They also enjoyed dancing, meeting friends at the Friendship Circle, and traveling to timeshares around the world. 

“Celebrate what’s most important—family, food and the Lord.”  Jackie worked hard to give her family the best, she gave very generously, and she always had time for a party. Christmas, birthdays, and other holidays were always well celebrated. She loved camping, picnicking, playing basketball or volleyball, and inviting friends over for pinochle or bridge. Music made her smile from the heart. She seized every opportunity to sing and was a coveted soloist for special events.

Jackie was the sparkle in the room! She loved people, always had time to talk over tea, and wanted the best for everyone. “The best makeup is a smile.” You couldn’t miss her friendly smile, meticulous appearance, and genuine beauty (inside and out). We rarely went anywhere without someone telling her how beautiful she was — even in her last days.

Jackie was preceded in death by her husband, Richard Helberg, her father, Vernon Hough, her mother, Gladys Hough, her husband, Jerry Schenck, her sisters, Laurine Williams and Gladys Gantt, and her brothers, Ivan Tourville and Martin Hough.

Jackie is survived by her daughter Laura Swanson, granddaughter Carli (Ben) Forsythe and great-grandchildren Kylie, Jonah, Bella, Tessa, and Haiden; her daughter Susan Jones, granddaughter Amy (Pete) Sims and great-grandson Charlie, and grandson Daniel Jones (Nora Mounce) and great-grandson Leroy; son Tom Helberg and granddaughter Katie; and son Jeff (Raema) Helberg, granddaughter Heidi (Troy) Brown and great-grandchildren Hayden, Jordyn, and Teagan, and grandson Sam Helberg and great-grandchildren David and Aubree. She is also survived by her brother Douglas Hough (Ruth), and many nieces and nephews and wonderful friends.

We love her and will miss her greatly.

Thank you to all who have sent heartfelt condolences. It truly helps during this time to know people remember her. Due to COVID restrictions, the family is not planning an open gathering at this time. Please continue to celebrate Jackie’s life by remembering to smile and sing and care about one another. Memorial gifts in honor of Jackie Schenck may be directed to the American Heart Association (click here for the AHA website).

Thank you to St. Joseph’s medical team and the kind and helpful staff at Timber Ridge.

Ronald John Kolesnik died March 28 of heart failure, in the ICU at St Joe’s in Eureka. He was 69.

Born in Chicago in 1952, he moved as a boy to Los Angeles, where he graduated from San Gabriel High School, and earned an AA degree in economics from Pasadena City College. In his twenties he came north to Fortuna, where he lived the rest of his life.

He worked as a housepainter and handyman; he could fix anything that broke. He was an aficionado of classic rock and roll, passionate about the Beatles and Led Zeppelin; the Point will miss this loyal fan who called in regularly to their shows. He loved challenging people to identify scraps of old rock and roll songs.

He loved sports, especially the Lakers, the Rams and the Dodgers, and he was at his best when he was playing sports and coaching. He coached girls’ softball in Eureka for several seasons, winning a county championship with his 9 to 12 year olds; at Fortuna High, he coached the men’s tennis team to five successful seasons.

He played tennis in the local tournaments, winning several titles. For ten years he organized and ran the Fortuna Rodeo Tennis Tournament, one of the signature events of Rodeo Week. When the high school tennis courts needed resurfacing, he was instrumental in the grassroots effort to raise money to get that done.

He leaves behind his sister Marcia, of San Marino; his brother Robert, of Upland; his daughter, Debora Rose Holland, his beloved grandchildren, Katherine Dahl and Brayden John Glenn Dahl, all of Fortuna; his stepdaughters Bonnie Holland of Richmond, Va, and Karen Leavens of Fortuna; and a lifetime of memories.

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Norway-based seafood company Nordic Aquafarms plans to grow Atlantic salmon within the confines of the half-billion-dollar onshore fish farm it’s developing for the former pulp mill property on the Samoa Peninsula, company representatives confirmed during a community Zoom meeting Wednesday.

Nordic’s commercial director, Marianne Naess, said the species is not only popular commercially, it’s also domesticated and bred for fish farming, meaning it’s accustomed to living in tanks. The plans for Nordic’s local facility center on recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) — large, enclosed tanks in which the fish will feed and grow before being harvested and packaged for distribution. 

“Another reason [for selecting Atlantic salmon] is we don’t want to go in direct competition with any local fishermen,” Naess said during Wednesday’s meeting. “That’s important.” Also important, she said, is respecting the sanctity of Chinook and Coho salmon to local tribes.

Some members of the local fishing community have voiced opposition to Nordic’s proposed factory, which could produce as much as 60 million pounds of fish per year for distribution across the West Coast. But Naess said the company’s goal is to replace the existing supply of imported Atlantic salmon from the East Coast overseas, much of which is raised in net pens and shipped via air freight.

“At least 50 percent of what’s being sold retail in California is from overseas” she said in reference to salmon.

Scott Thompson, the company’s locally employed project manager and engineer, spent some time during the Zoom meeting outlining a range of studies and mitigation measures being taken to ensure that the facilities will be secure, environmentally safe and able to withstand natural disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis.

The company hired structural engineer Gary Chock, who used computer simulations and high-definition lidar imaging to analyze the impacts of the kind of earthquake and tsunami that comes along once every 2,500 years. While seawater would inundate the peninsula and probably destroy much of Eureka, it would not rise above the water level in the RAS tanks, and the facility would survive intact, Thompson said.

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As for the fish, female-only eggs will be imported, quarantined and checked for pathogens, then hatched and placed in freshwater smolt tanks within the facility, according to Thompson. From there they’ll be moved to grow-out facilities and once large enough they’ll be induced to swim through underground pipes, transitioning to the saltwater RAS tanks.

“It’s a very bio-secure facility designed to keep pathogens out,” Thompson said. 

Naess agreed, saying the facility is being designed to be “escape proof.”

The company has prepared an initial study and mitigated negative declaration (IS/MND), which Naess said could be posted for public review as soon as next week. She expects the project to go before the Planning Commission sometime in May.

Nordic has also applied for an air quality permit, discharge permits and a demolition permit, with plans to tear down the massive boiler, towering smokestack and the rest of the remaining pulp mill infrastructure. Naess said site preparation, including ground densification, could last 10 to 16 months. The company hopes to being construction in 2022.

Anyone with questions about the project is encouraged to contact local liaison Lynette Mullen via lynette.mullen@gmail.com. 

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Massive New Fish Farm in the Works for Samoa Peninsula; Harbor District Expected to Bless Project Helmed by Norwegian Firm at Special Meeting Monday
• Norwegian Fish Farm Says Its Samoa Operations Will Create 80 Jobs, Produce 50 Million Pounds of Salmon or Steelhead Per Year
• Harbor District Agrees to 30-Year Lease for Massive, Land-Based Fish Farm on Samoa Peninsula
• Let’s Take a Closer Look at This Big Fish Farm Proposal for the Samoa Peninsula
• County Agrees to Pursue Infrastructure Funds in Hopes of Landing Fish Farm on Samoa Peninsula
• Due Diligence Complete, Nordic Aquafarms Decides to Move Forward With Aquaculture Facility on the Samoa Peninsula
• Nordic Aquafarms, Which Now Has a Local Office and is Recruiting Employees, Will Host a Community Meeting Tonight
• Nordic Aquafarms Hires Idaho Native as First Cali-Based Exec, Signs Contracts for Permitting, Engineering
• Nordic Aquafarms Terminates Humboldt-Based Exec After Seeing Photo of Him Posing With a Lion He’d Killed
• Nordic Aquafarms Expands Aquaculture Facility Plans, Releases Images Showing What the Fish Farm Would Look Like
• Nordic Aquafarms Submits Discharge Permit Application for Land-Based Fish Farm on Samoa Peninsula

The City of Eureka has retained Bay Area law firm Sacks, Rickets and Case to conduct an independent investigation into a series of violent, misogynist and racist text messages allegedly sent by EPD officers, including Sgt. Rodrigo Reyna-Sanchez and Officer Mark Meftah.

An agreement on file with the city shows that the firm, which has offices in San Francisco, San Diego, Palo Alto and Phoenix, Ariz., was hired on March 19, just two days after a story in the Sacramento Bee revealed the demeaning messages allegedly exchanged by Reyna-Sanchez and Meftah, if not others within their squad. 

Both officers have been on paid administrative leave since shortly after the story broke.

The agreement, which was signed by City Manager Miles Slattery, City Attorney Robert Black and City Clerk Pam Powell, says the investigation into “inappropriate text messaging” will be conducted “for the purpose of facilitating the rendering of legal advice to the City by its counsel.”

In response to questions submitted via email, Eureka Police Chief Steve Watson said he’s prohibited by law and city policy from commenting on any ongoing investigation, but he offered some general comments.

“The community can rest assured we are taking this situation with the full seriousness it deserves,” Watson said via email. Regarding the investigation he said, “We are fully committed to this process and the appropriate, legally supported outcome. While we are moving to swiftly investigate, we also must carefully follow all requirements of California law as they relate to public employee personnel matters.”

As the Outpost previously reported, police officers in California enjoy an extra layer of due process protections thanks to the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights, a state law originally passed in 1977. Critics say the law undercuts efforts to hold officers accountable for wrongdoing.

Employees with Sacks, Rickets and Case will be paid hourly rates ranging from $125 for paralegals up to $350 for partners, according to the agreement. Neither Watson nor the document provide an estimate on the timeline for the investigation. 

The contract does promise independence, though. It says, “The City understands and acknowledges that the Firm will exercise its independent judgment to make whatever findings it deems are warranted based on the evidence developed in the investigation … .”

Watson said, “We are eager to get to the bottom of this and take appropriate action based on a fair but thorough fact-finding process.”

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Sac Bee Investigation Details Vile Group Chat Among Members of One EPD Squad
• Officers Named in Sac Bee Article Placed on Administrative Leave; Chief Says Outside, Impartial Investigator Will be Brought In to Examine Hateful Group Texts
• Rally Against Police Brutality and Bigotry at Courthouse This Evening
• Why Can’t They be Fired Immediately? EPD Chief Watson Speaks to the State Law That Prevents Local Agencies From Simply Terminating Bad Cops

Image from US National Weather Service

You’ve probably heard the proverb about March’s weather: “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” Well, this month seems to be living up to that saying, for the most part, with this last day of the month reaching unusually warm temperatures for March and some interior parts of Humboldt seeing temperatures in the mid 80s.

“March is going out like a lamb (arguably the same way it came in),” The US National Weather Service of Eureka writes on its Facebook page. “However, this last day of the month should be quite a bit warmer than the first, with high temperatures once again topping out in the lower to mid 80s across some of the interior valleys. Mostly sunny skies are expected.”

Though Humboldt saw a fair amount of cold days this March, with rain, hail and snow earlier in the month, the beginning of March was also quite nice. Jonathan Garner — a meteorologist with the National Weather Service — told the Outpost that today’s high temperature in Eureka will actually be about the same as it was on March 4, which was the warmest day of 2021. Though today may not technically be the warmest day of the year so far, it is certainly one of the warmest.

The high temperatures are also well shy of the record for this date, which Garner said was in the mid 70s in Eureka, but it is about 3 to 4 degrees warmer than is the average for March, he said.

So, take your eyes off of your screen now and get out there and enjoy it, Humboldt! The sunny warm weather is expected to continue tomorrow, but things will be cooling down moving into the weekend and we may see rain starting on Sunday.

Press release from the North Coast Journal:

The North Coast Journal Inc. — a media company that includes the 15,000-circulation weekly newspaper and website, plus nearly a dozen publications serving Humboldt County, California — has been sold.

The buyer, Melissa Sanderson, 37, took over as president and publisher March 31. She has worked for the company since 2014, first as sales manager and the past three years as general manager.

The sellers are two long-time friends and business partners, Judy Hodgson and Carolyn Fernandez, who purchased the newly established monthly newspaper in June of 1990, converted it to a weekly in 1998 and launched a string of successful, hyper-local publications. Those include the Insider, a quarterly tourism magazine; the annual Menu of Menus and Wedding Guide; and more recently, the bi-monthly North Coast Trader, a classified paper that reaches six coastal counties in California and Oregon. One Journal publication launched in 2017, the Humboldt Cannabis Magazine, is distributed twice a year to dispensaries throughout California. 

Over the past three decades, the Journal has won dozens of major awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association and the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for writing and reporting, design and photography, as well as numerous freedom-of-information awards. The newspaper has been recognized numerous times by the Society of Professional Journalists and the League of Women Voters. 

While preparing this press release, Hodgson and Fernandez realized they actually had been working together for 45 years. Hodgson wrote a column, “Fieldbrook Footnotes,” for the Union weekly newspaper in Arcata beginning in 1976 while attending Humboldt State University (HSU). She graduated in 1978, joined the staff as a reporter and from 1983 to 1988, served as editor. Fernandez joined the Union in 1976 as a graphic artist, later becoming head of the production department. Both left in 1988 after a change in ownership and, in 1989, worked together again at an advertising agency before purchasing the Journal. The paper was immediately rebranded and redesigned from a quarter-fold into the magazine tabloid format that exists today.

The two now-septuagenarians had been searching to find just the right “next owner” of the Journal for more than two decades. “We are super happy to sell to one of our great employees and a fourth-generation Humboldt County woman half our age,” Hodgson said. (Fortunans may recognize Sanderson’s maiden name of Huber and the Senestraro branch of the family.)

Sanderson has been in publishing since grade school. She made copies and distributed the Fortuna Spartan to all the classrooms in fifth grade. At Fortuna Union High School, where she “majored in at least four sports” as well as FFA, she was ad manager for the Husky Howler and wrote a sports column for Fortuna’s weekly newspaper, the Humboldt Beacon. After graduation, she attended both College of the Redwoods and HSU at the same time. She married her husband, Chris Sanderson, and landed her first professional job in the marketing department of the new Bear River Casino in 2005. She was an account rep for the Times-Standard and then managed a radio station until joining the Journal in 2014. 

Most new owners of a news media company hope to reassure readers and say they will not change a thing, and then things do, which is what happened at the Union in 1988, according to Hodgson and Fernandez. But Sanderson said she really means it.

“We have strength throughout the company — in sales, design and production, and support staff,” she said, but particularly in the award-winning editorial department. “It’s a great publication. We have a strong mission statement. We do really good journalism for this community and I want to keep that going.”

Sanderson said her strengths are on the business side of publishing, with a focus on marketing and digital, and she is confident in the Journal’s future.

While there were some layoffs and furloughs last year due to the pandemic, the Journal is back up to 21 employees. Circulation, which dipped from 21,000 to 12,000 when many businesses closed and tourism shut down, is back to 15,000. 

Sanderson said she is grateful for the federal Paycheck Protection Program loan that helped the company retain employees during the pandemic. 

Her plans for 2021 are “to concentrate on growing the Journal, for sure, and help other local businesses” recover and grow.

The Journal’s glossy publications, including the Insider magazine, were suspended during the pandemic. They are expected to return to newsstands this year.

For more information, contact Melissa Sanderson (707) 498-8370 or Judy Hodgson (707) 845-8129.

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Study spaces: In a typical school year, they’re everywhere. College students can hit the books in their dorm rooms, head to the library or settle in at a local coffee shop.

But this past year has been anything but typical, as many students packed into homes with working parents, Zoom-studying siblings and sometimes children of their own. The cramped study environments can pose an academic disadvantage to low-income students who are more likely to live in crowded conditions, said Daniel Stokols, a professor emeritus of social ecology at University of California, Irvine.

“When you have a certain amount of affluence and space at home, when you’re not as confined… you’re going to be at an advantage going forward (compared to) people who are trying to focus on a class on Zoom and they’re being distracted by the noise around or the high density or lack of access to nature.”

Stokols studies the relationships between people and their environments, from the micro level (individuals and families) to the macro level (neighborhoods and national or global policies), and the way those relationships affect behavior. He wrote an essay on the loss during the pandemic of so-called “second and third spaces” — places outside the home that offer respite and a chance to interact with other humans.

The CalMatters College Journalism Network recently spoke with Stokols and students who are making the best of awkward study spaces, to understand how the pandemic is affecting learning environments. Natural light, ventilation, defined territory and personalization, and fewer people per square foot can all make a space conducive to learning, Stokols said. But in a raging pandemic, those may be harder to come by. Here are the biggest takeaways from our conversations

1. Laundry rooms and bedrooms have replaced libraries

Abel Guillen has his own dedicated study space to finish his mechanical engineering homework — except when his family has to do the laundry.

When distance learning began last March, Guillen, a second-year student at California State University Los Angeles, moved into the tiny one-bedroom house that his parents share with his sister in South Los Angeles

He put together a makeshift office in the home’s 5’ by 5’ laundry room: a sawed-down-to-size yellow desk with a small window providing a glint of natural light. He spends hours a day sandwiched between the washing machine and a wall on his metal folding chair, attending classes and working on assignments.

“It’s always a little bit cramped in there,” Guillen said, “but…it’s kind of the best way for me to actually do all my stuff at my pace.”

A crowded space may not be a productive one. Researchers have been studying the effects of crowding on college students for decades, Stokols said. Take, for example, this study done in the 1970’s that shows dormitory students in crowded dorms may withdraw from social interactions. More recent studies show that students in crowded settings can develop depression, anxiety and unhealthy coping habits such as binge eating and overuse of the internet.

Before the pandemic, Guillen lived on campus and studied at the library. Downsizing to the laundry room is stressful, he said, but it’s all his family can afford at the moment. His parents, both immigrants from El Salvador, worked hard to get where they are, and Guillen hopes he can find success in life by going to college. But he said recently, he’s struggled with some classes, and developed “a slight fear of failing.”

“It’s tough,” Guillen said. “I just gotta figure out a way to just pull through and pass.”

2. It’s hard to drown out a house full of people

Some people can work well in loud environments and others have more trouble, Stokols said. But people who live in crowded homes or neighborhoods may not have the option to adjust the noise levels in their study spaces. And with multiple people at home all doing their own thing, the noise can add up.

“If you can’t control that, you can’t regulate that, that’s going to be problematic, if that’s chronic, if it’s something that you’re dealing with on a day to day basis,” Stokols said.

The sounds of home permeate Guillen’s Zoom classes, he said: comments from his “chatty” older sister who is looking for a job, voices from the television, his tiny white chihuahua’s yipping. Guillen learned early on to use the Zoom unmute function with extreme caution during the day, especially when his dad is watching soccer.

“I was doing all my notes for math, and I was gonna ask my professor a question. I turn on my mic and then my dad…his team didn’t win,” Guillen said. His dad yelled an expletive in Spanish, which to Guillen’s chagrin was heard by his entire class.

Julian Zavala, a former radiology student at Long Beach City College, said the stress of studying in a shared room, in a house with seven people, contributed to his decision to drop out of school.

“There’s so much going on around me that it’s hard to pay attention to my classes,” Zavala said. “It’s just all the background noise that comes with being at home.”

The disruptions caused Zavala to lose motivation, he said.

“‘I don’t really want to do this, I’m tired, I’m not in the mood to do it right now,’ and then after a while it kind of just takes over and then you don’t really want to do any of your work,” Zavala said.

3. Some students are finding ways to personalize their spaces

Above Guillen’s desk hangs a painting he made of a sunset over the ocean. The way the red, orange and blue hues blend together chaotically reminds Guillen of this year, so he has named the piece “2020.”

It’s the closest Guillen gets to personal space in the house. He shares the single bedroom with his sister, while his parents sleep on a futon in the hybrid living room, kitchen and dining room.

But even those small efforts to personalize Guillen’s quasi-private sanctuary might make a difference, Stokols said.

“This is really important in workspaces,” Stokols said. “Being able to maintain your own territory — people seem to have a need for that.”

Without a desk and chair, school work can be backbreaking work

Unlike Guillen, Nancy Saucedo lives in a three-bedroom home and has her own space to study in. But there’s a problem: the University of California Davis history student’s room is so small that she has no space for a desk and chair.

That means lots of late nights slumped on her full-sized bed doing school work. It’s the best way to avoid being distracted by the rest of her family, and often the only time she has left after tutoring her eight-year-old sister.

“I passed. C’s get degrees. We’re done. Let’s go to sleep.”
— UC Davis History Student Nancy Saucedo, on studying without a desk

Saucedo moved back in with her family in Porterville after the pandemic made it difficult for her to afford her Davis apartment and her parents needed someone to watch her sister, who is also doing school online. Her parents, both field workers, spend 10-12 hours a day harvesting lemons and oranges.

The bed isn’t the most comfortable place to work, and it’s an example of the kind of ergonomic stress that Stokols says can distract students from their work. Saucedo says she builds pillow forts around herself for more back support, but can only take the slouching for so long. If she had a proper desk, she figures, she’d have been able to focus better in the fall.

“Luckily I was able to pass. It wasn’t with the grades that I normally get,” Saucedo said. “But at that point I was just like ‘I passed. C’s get degrees. We’re done. Let’s go to sleep.’ ”

The loss of alternate spaces has deeply affected students

As many students have returned to live with family, traditional boundaries between home, work and school have blurred.

Ana Garcia, a human development student at UC Davis, used to spend her study time in libraries next to large windows, which helped with her depression. Now, her home and school spaces are one and the same — and, she says, her fall quarter grades suffered.

“Studying at school or the library, I would get into the mindset of ‘Okay, here I am. I’m studying,” Garcia said. “Then at home, if I just wanted to do nothing, that was my place. Now I feel like that’s gone.”

Academic stress during the pandemic has been intensified by the loss of what sociologist Ray Oldenburg called second spaces — offices and schools — and third spaces like coffee shops, book stores and public libraries, Stokols said. First spaces (homes) are becoming hybrid second and third spaces where students may be dealing with multiple stressors at the same time — work, family members, kids and school. “It can be a real pressure cooker,” Stokols said.

Over the years, technology has made the distinctions between different types of spaces somewhat arbitrary, Stokols said. Now you can work from home and meet with friends online. But the pandemic, he said, has revealed that people still rely on spaces outside the home.

“When people spend hours on Zoom each day, in these long meetings or classes, they get fatigued, they can’t be creative….It’s a very kind of disembodied way of interacting with people,” Stokols said.

Some colleges have strengthened Wi-Fi in parking garages, creating makeshift study spaces for students who lack internet access at home. But studying in a car can be cramped and noisy.

The loss of alternate spaces weighs especially heavily on homeless students, who usually do not have a stable place to accomplish schoolwork, said Pixie Pearl, director of the California Homelessness Youth Project.

Surveys show that 17% of college students nationwide experienced homelessness in 2018-2019. The pandemic has closed many libraries, long havens for homeless people to find resources and shelter.

“Shelters are overcrowded now and then and they’ve also decreased their capacity to be able to maintain COVID-safe practices,” Pearl said.

Unstable living conditions increase the likelihood of homeless college students experiencing mental health issues that can affect their academics, Pearl said, creating a vicious cycle.

“If your worth is based on how well you’re doing in school — because it’s the only identity you have beyond being homeless — and then that’s not going well, it doesn’t give you any other sight into yourself.”

Lap desks and headphones can help, but the real solutions are systemic

Saucedo bought a lap desk for her bed to help with slouching, and uses headphones to drown out noise from home. Guillen listens to the theme music from the anime series Naruto while studying.

Stokols said those coping mechanisms can make a difference, but at some point schools and governments have to take the lead in providing solutions — such as more access to green space where students can find fresh air and an escape from the stress of home.

That’s worked for Garcia, who lives in Davis near several parks and said that going on walks has helped her relax more than if she didn’t have that outlet. Such access is heavily dependent on income and education, however, studies show.

“Because people have such an essential, strong contact with nature, that can be a disadvantage for people in neighborhood structures that don’t have that amenity,” Stokols said.

Even with classes still largely online, some colleges have opened up their campus grounds for students to work on assignments while socially distanced. UCLA is reopening the campus research library, practice and rehearsal rooms, and recreation centers. Other schools have been providing more in-person classes, including outdoors, as they plan to bring at least some students back to campus in the fall.

Cuyamaca College, a community college in El Cajon, has 20’ by 20’ tents set up in the parking lot where students can use Wi-Fi and study for classes. A grassy lawn was also used for studying before it became a vaccine distribution center. At a time when community college enrollment has dropped statewide, the college saw no decrease in enrollment last semester, which the college’s president, Julianna Barnes, attributed partly to the opportunities available on a campus with a lot of land. The outdoor study spaces were especially attractive for rural students whose internet access is spotty, campus officials said.

UC San Diego has opened outdoor classrooms and study spaces as part of its Return to Learn program. The three al fresco study halls accommodate up to 35 students for labs and group work on a first-come, first-served basis, with social distancing and mandatory masking.

“If we don’t have those higher level solutions,” Stokols said, “then doing a few things around the edges at home, they’re more like Band-Aid solutions.”

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Getahun is a former fellow with the CalMatters College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation.

CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.