Forest Field Days
Forest Field Days is a fun and exciting program for middle school students and teachers, promoting awareness of forests and forest management. The program is designed to provide science-based learning, and to foster citizenship, critical-thinking, and problem solving in students.
The Forest Field Day Program Includes:
- A multiple-week, multi-disciplinary curriculum
- A role-play activity where students play members of a family who must reconcile differing viewpoints to create a management plan for an inherited tree farm
- A day-long field trip to a working tree farm, where students meet professionals in the field, and learn how forestlands are managed for wood, water, soils, wildlife and recreation
Forests Today & Forever has coordinated the Forest Field Days program since 1995, and has hosted over 20,000 students to local tree farms!
Forest Field Day Highlights:
- Curriculum printed and delivered to teachers
- Standards-aligned
- Field Trip to a working tree farm
- No cost for program, and transportation costs are reimbursed
Program Objectives:
- Student become aware of Oregon’s forests as an important natural resource, and that humans depend upon forests (i.e., products, recreation, aesthetics, clean water).
- Students can define science concepts, such as erosion, predation, photosynthesis, food web, etc.
- Students can define forestry terms, such as sustained yield, DBH, timber stand, cruise, clear cut.
- Students can explain the role of the Forest Practice Act to protect environment, and can describe a few of the rules (i.e., leave trees, buffer zones).
- Students work together, practicing problem-solving, critical-thinking and communication skills, to produce a management plan for forestland that generates income, while meeting land use laws and Oregon Forest Practice Act rules.
- Students can explain how active forest management benefits society.
Here is a recent published article about the field experience of Forest Field Days!
