Small Town News

Annual teacher tour brings forestry to the classroom

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DEARY The school bells are ringing again and teachers and students alike are energized about being back in the classroom. But don't think that teachers just lie around all summer, catching their breath. This past summer, 40 teachers got out to learn more about forestry issues. Among those attending from this area were Becky Pickard of Genesee Elementary, and Karen Tripepi of McDonald Elementary in Moscow.

The teachers were taken out to the woods to understand the growth cycles and evolutions of forests, wood products harvesting, and other environmental considerations. Developed by the Idaho Forest Products Commission, this year's annual woods tour added an emerging subject: carbon storage and the effects of forests on climate change.

Credit Al Gore with bringing carbon lessons back into the public school curriculum. As the teachers heard the facts on carbon storage, most admitted they'd either snoozed through lessons on carbon sequestration, or they'd never had the lessons taught in the first place. Karen Tripepi, a fourth grade teacher, agreed that carbon issues are difficult to teach to grade schoolers, but students need to hear them as climate change remains in the news.

"All Gore really brought carbon issues into the classroom," said Michelle Youngquist of the Idaho Forest Products Commission. Youngquist coordinates teacher tours and Project Learning Tree, creating opportunities for educators to get into the great outdoors to learn firsthand about forest ecology and forest management.

As for Tripepi and other teachers on the woodland tour, it was all about absorbing the notion that live healthy trees store carbon and even trees that are harvested continue to store it. Dead and dying trees, however, release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The lessons took a practical direction as the teachers viewed a logging demonstration at the University of Idaho

Experimental Forest near Deary, Idaho. At the site, logging contractor Steve Henderson of Pine Creek Logging explained modern day logging practices. Noting that high tech equipment now harvests the trees, he pointed out that delimbing trees and leaving needles and branches on the ground to decompose actually makes a cushion for equipment to drive over. This means less ground disturbance and soil compaction during harvest. Similarly, a machine called a forwarder gathers the logs and carries them to a landing, again creating less ground disruption than older cat skidding techniques.

Although several teachers hailed from traditional logging communities, they found the lessons helpful in telling new directions in forestry, such as using logs for woody biomass energy. Teachers from more urban locations, meanwhile, found log harvesting equipment intriguing. Most had tried out a harvester simulator on the tour and had learned the challenges of operating highly sophisticated computerized equipment.

"You can see how a kid playing computer games might take to this," said Jim Gustin, a high school teacher from Orofino, Idaho. "It definitely requires a lot of hand-eye coordination."



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© 2009 The Boomerang! Palouse, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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