The Blue Oak Ranch Preserve north of Springville is the site for a number of future projects, including a project to study the habits of the western pond turtle. Last summer (August 2022) a team of students from Poplar installed a cellular gateway on a hill overlooking a large pond where the turtles live. The gateway wirelessly collects data from sensors and uploads this information to the Internet where researchers can view it using an app.
Huron students are planning to upgrade the hardware and software contained in the gateway.
