Forest Field Days
Forest Field Days is an exciting program that connects middle school students with Oregon’s forest resources. It includes an in-class curriculum and a field trip to a working forest. The program provides science-based learning, and fosters citizenship, critical-thinking, and problem solving in students.
Forests Today & Forever has coordinated the Forest Field Days program since 1994, and has hosted over 58,000 students to local tree farms! Read more about this great program below.
The Forest Field Day Program Includes:
• A science-based, multiple-week, multi-disciplinary, standards-aligned curriculum
• A role-play activity where students must reconcile differing viewpoints to create a forest management plan.
• A day-long field trip to a working tree farm, where students meet professionals who work in the forest sector, and learn how forests are managed for timber, clean water, productive soil, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities.
Teachers Can Expect:
• NGSS-aligned curriculum printed and delivered to school
• Support coordinating the field trip to a working tree farm
• FREE program, and transportation costs reimbursed
Program Objectives:
1. 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).
2. Students can define science concepts, such as erosion, predation, photosynthesis, food web, etc.
3. Students can define forestry terms, such as sustained yield, DBH, timber stand, cruise, clear cut.
4. 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).
5. 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.
6. Students can explain how active forest management benefits society.
Seeing the Forest For the Trees and Much More
“Forest Field Day’s Learning targets are aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. When it’s time to teach middle school students about “Human Impact on the Environment”, it’s best to take them outside and provide them with well planned, hands on lessons facilitated by local professionals and teachers. Students prepare in their classroom and then are fully engaged during the outdoor lessons.” -Trish Stolp, Agnes Stewart Middle School, 2018
Click here to read an article published in the Gazette Times about the experience of Forest Field Days.
Please contact us if you are interested in creating a Forest Field Day for your school or program!