Land Steward Online Course

Rachel Werling is the faculty coordinator for the OSU Land Steward Progam and has been with OSU Extension since 2011. She oversees the Land Steward field training, volunteers and mentors, community education classes, and Living on Your Land conference.  Rachel developed this course with the assistance of a Land Steward advisory committee of volunteers and partners.  The Land Steward Program works with a diverse set of community partners working to support land stewards to achieve their management goals.

Rachel grew up in Minnesota on a family dairy farm. After studying environmental biology and botany at Humboldt State University, in California, she served as a forestry volunteer in the Peace Corps in Ecuador. She lived in Oaxaca, Mexico for twelve years where she stewarded three acres of land, ran a family business, and raised two daughters. Through Arizona State University, Rachel completed her Master’s degree in botany while in Oaxaca. Her thesis is an illustrated flora of native trees and shrubs. Prior to the Land Stewards, Rachel worked for OSU Extension coordinating a watershed education program. She has been teaching natural resource education in Oregon since 2008. Since moving to Oregon, Rachel has walked many wild miles of land as a professional field biologist performing inventories and assessments for plants, birds and mammals in the Pacific Northwest. She is chair of the Native Plant Society of Oregon’s Siskiyou Chapter.  In her free time, you'll find her outdoors when possible, hiking, camping, canoeing, x-c skiing, and always keeping an eye on what the plants, birds, land stewards and other creatures are up to.

OSU Open Campus Education Coordinator

- https://extension.oregonstate.edu/people/ann-harris

Nicole Smith is the Program Assistant for the OSU Land Steward Program. She just joined the team this winter and is starting out assisting with mentor visit communication for the in-person Land Steward Course and coordinating the Land Steward Hybrid Online Course launching Spring 2024.

 Nicole completed her Bachelors in Evolution, Ecology, and Biodiversity and minor in Education at University of California, Davis before diving head first into the world out Outdoor Education for the next 10+ years. She completed her Master’s of Science in Environmental Education with a certificate in Nonprofit Management at Southern Oregon University where she fell in love with the Rogue Valley. After graduation Nicole was honored to receive her dream job as an Educational Park Ranger in Yosemite National Park where she spent the summer living under granite rock faces and fire adapted ecosystems. She moved on to teach alongside 60+ educational volunteers whom she managed at a Farm and Wilderness Preserve in California for the next 4 years. Nicole and her colleagues produced a series of 30 educational videos and accompanying learning guides, free to teachers, bringing the wilderness and farm into the classroom when her role as an outdoor educator turned virtual during the pandemic.

 Returning to the Rogue Valley to lay down roots she focused on the smallest learners post-pandemic, starting an fully licensed outdoor preschool she successfully ran out of her home with a generous grant award. After closing the program, Nicole has focused on connecting with her community through volunteer commitments, such as mentoring with the Jackson County Master Gardeners program and joining the Board of Directors of a newly formed nonprofit in Rogue River, The Wards Creek Restoration Project. In her free time, she manages her own little homestead in Rogue River with 19 chickens and 6 ducks, a garden and orchard, and arriving early July her and her husband are expecting the first addition to their family, a daughter.