A FUN FACT FILLED FORESTRY FIELD TRIP

Jeff · May 09, 2002, 05:53:48 PM

Many of you may remember that I was responsible for creating and running a contest for the 10, 11 and 12 grades for all of Michigan for the Tree of Hope project. We decided that first prize was going to be: A FUN FACT FILLED FORESTRY FIELD TRIP.

Well, Ada Takacs from the DNR and I had the responsibility for creating and Coordinating the trip which takes place May 15. We have been very busy over the last few weeks getting this thing put together and I thought that you might like to take a look at our itinerary, which still may change a little before now and Wednesday.

Tree of Hope
Sustainable Forestry Tours
May 15, 2002

On May 15th, 2 groups of kids who won tree of hope contests will be going on a forestry field trip. Ten 11th and12th graders from Shepherd, and Twentytwo 7th and 8th graders from Gladstone, and 9 adults will be visiting the following stops and events. Our Students will be traveling in style! The Gladstone group will be traveling on a tour bus from Westlund busses and the Shepherd group will be riding in a deluxe bus from Dream Keepers of Mt. Pleasant.

MFRA auto tour:(this is a link!) Gladstone will be doing the U.P. tour Shepherd the L.P. tour. DNR Foresters will be on board the buses to explain each site and will tie in the related stops that will be visited on the trip.

Weyerhaeuser: Strand board developing. Tour of entire process from pulp wood to product includes tour of computer and control rooms.

Active Modern timber harvest. On-site explanation of how harvests are conducted, what large equipment is used, etc.

Hartwick Pines State Park: Explanation of the old growth pines, logging museum and visitor center. Students will be planting large white spruce (same species as Tree of Hope) at the park and including a time capsule with students' signatures and one other item selected by the classroom beforehand. Note: this is the only time we're aware of that students have been allowed to plant trees in a park and include a time capsule. Students will be able to take their children and grandchildren to the park in the future and point out the tree they planted.

Grayling DNR:We will be eating pizza for lunch here. Staff will take students in groups of 5 and teach them basic forestry tool use and formulas to figure height, age, circumference, Tree I.D.,etc.

Kirtland Warbler site: Students will visit an active Kirtland Warbler jack pine stand that has been managed specifically for the endangered bird. The Kirtland Warblers should have returned to Michigan by now, so we may be able to view and hear them. Note: There are only two places in the WORLD that Kirtland Warblers are known to nest...the Bahamas during our winters and northern lower Michigan in the summer.

Christmas Tree Farm in Topinabee: Tree farm that propagates Christmas trees from seed. Entire process from seed to bailing will be shown or described.

Trip Coordinators: Foresters:
Ada Takacs Jack Pilon (Shepherd Bus)
Jeff Brokaw Tom Stone (Gladstone)

Handouts:

Teacher gets:
Eastern and Western Audubon Field Guides
Poster sets (Life in the Forest and Smokey sets)

Every student, teacher, chaperone, forester, and bus driver if enough) gets:
Bag
Eastern Audubon Field Guide
Disposable camera and developing pouch (good for free developing of film)
Famous and Historic Tree certificate valued at $45 + catalog
MFRA auto tour pamphlet
U.P. auto tour pamphlet
B&B planting and right tree/right location flyers
Pencil
One ticket

Digital Camera Prizes:
3 digital cameras will be drawn for by ticket at the conclusion of the trip.
Each student will have one ticket in their packet. Foresters can hand out additional tickets throughout the day at random. Suggested reasons to hand out tickets: The student pays close attention to a speaker, asks questions, assists in cleanup or planting trees, answers trivia, etc. The more tickets a student "earns," the better the chances that they will win the digital camera. Everyone will have at least one chance to win because of the ticket in his or her bag.

A few of the Forester's Objectives

Keep the tour on schedule

Describe MFRA Auto Tours

Ask pertinent questions at the sites that the students may not know to ask

Distribute and give instructions for the handouts

Describe how to plant a B&B tree at Hartwick Pines State Park

Explain how to use the Audubon field guide

Talking points

Christmas tree industry facts at the farm

MFRA Tour (site #9 is Grayling area jobs; site #10 is Hartwick Pines; Will try to make any connections between auto tour and today's stops)

Famous and Historic Trees certificate: worth $45; planting zones; benefits of planting indigenous trees

Forestry Trivia questions

Time capsule: Includes Tree of Hope tag (from official ornaments), Tree of Hope emblem sticker, page with signatures of students, and whatever the school wants to add.

Tom · May 09, 2002, 06:59:01 PM

That looks like fun. I wish I were going. :'(

DanG · May 09, 2002, 08:55:19 PM

AWWWW, MAAAANNN! I wanna go! That sounds like a super day.

This is the sort of thing that creates the people who will love the forest for all their lives. My hat is off to you and the other folks that put this together. 8) 8) 8) 8)

Corley5 · May 09, 2002, 09:32:21 PM

That sounds like a really cool field trip!! Tom Stone the forester on the Gladstone Bus is he from the the DNR office in Indian River?

Jeff · May 10, 2002, 03:01:35 AM

Yup I think so. I will be right up in your nick of the woods again Greg.

CHARLIE · May 11, 2002, 08:52:05 AM

I sure wish I could go. Sounds like fun and I bet I'd learn a lot of neat stuff I didn't know. Neat for the kids too! They're gonna have a fun day learnin', free pizza and get out of school too! 8) 8) Sounds like they can't lose.

Jeff · May 11, 2002, 09:33:01 AM

Believe this or not. There was one student from the Shepherd group that was scheduled to go to Cedar Point on the same day with another group. He told the teacher last month he was not going on ours. The Teacher said that after he saw our itinerary he discussed it with his parents and they felt it was too important of an opportunity to miss, so it looks like they will be taking him to Cedar Point so he can go on our tour.

Maybe the next Gifford Pinchot for the 2000s?

Last year it was stated by someone from Mead paper in Michigan that trying to educate the general public about forestry and forest management was like trying to kill an elephant with bird shot.

The President of MFRA's answer to that: How would you go about trying to eat that elephant?

One bite at a time.

Ron Scott · May 11, 2002, 04:31:49 PM

Well done! They will see and learn a lot. Some interesting stops with some very good tour guides.

Corley5 · May 11, 2002, 04:40:49 PM

I was at a training session the other day that Tom also attended. It was on warm weather grasses. Basically it dealt with restoring native prairie systems. It was quite informative.

RavioliKid · May 12, 2002, 10:22:56 AM

Wow, Jeff!

What a fantastic trip! What a great prize!

You guys sure are a class act!

timberbeast · May 13, 2002, 01:15:42 AM

8) Sounds great, Jeff, I love it! If'n ya get up 35 from Gladstone, watch on the right just past Rock, you'll see Kanerva's landing on the right. When you go a few more miles and see McFarland, give a toot on the horn, I might be about 4 miles west on the only crossroad, grunting in the swamp! If ya kin sneak out' the bus in Rock, sneak a quick coke at Herb's Bar. He wuz the first Westlund in da U.P., long gone, his grandkids have it now. I believe they own the bus company as well. The original money came from cutting timber. The young'uns own a passle of land, one chunk that adjoins a forty in Rock where my Pop was born and raised, used to have a Christmas tree farm there. They also have a ton back on the old Parker Spur road north of McFarland, we used to walk to their camp through the woods and visit when Herb and Billy (Herb's son) were still kicking. Herb showed me a stand of Cedar once, that he said he was going to let grow for around ten years before he cut it. He was 95 at the time. Us Finns may roll naked in the snow, but we do have optimism!! 8)

Jeff · May 14, 2002, 05:57:47 PM

Tomorrow is the big day! I will take a lot of pictures. I have two newsletter articles to write when I get back. One for Michigan Forest Resource Alliance and the Michigan Tree Farmers and one for Michigan Association of Timbermen.

Our weather here has sucked big time for weeks now. Forcast for tomorrow? Sunny and upper 60s. Perfect!

RavioliKid · May 14, 2002, 06:02:26 PM

Have a great time tomorrow, Jeff! It's good to see that the weather is cooperating.

Jeff · May 15, 2002, 06:20:42 PM

What a day! More later, I am bushed!

Everything went very well and I think the Kids had a blast. (And hopefully learned a lot!)

Frank_Pender · May 15, 2002, 07:52:51 PM

Good people like yourself, Jeff, makes for good learning and great memories for kids learning base. Thank for giving of yourself. It is the best there is to give, I have found. Those kids are fortunate to have those around them that care enough to take a day for real learning and sharing. :P

L. Wakefield · May 17, 2002, 08:00:43 AM

Education of this sort might have headed off some of the ecoterrorism being discussed at length in other threads. It goes a long way to eliminate the 'us and them' mentality that labels the other as the enemy. lw

Jeff · May 30, 2002, 07:30:20 PM

I have created a pictorial webpage for the fieldtrip. It is very similar to our gallery site here. You can comment on the photos. If you would like to take a virtual tour of our fun fact filled forestry field trip, please stop by www.mfra.org and click on the field trip link!

I encourage you to make comments (Only positive please! :D )on photos that interest you, or leave a question if you have one. The foresters that guided our buses will be checking in! I believe his will help the educational value of the site. After all interested folks (Students, hosts, forester, teachers, parents, tree of hope committe members, and lastly all of you) have had ample opportunity to comment, I will turn that function off. we have already had a few comments, and are expecting many more.

P.S., I would prefer mentions of yours truly be kept to a minimum. I developed the pictorial site to help further the learning the field trip was only possible because of the generosity of those businesses or sites or individuals that hosted our groups

Tom · May 30, 2002, 07:46:01 PM

Good pictures, Jeff. I hope those kids remember that trip for a long time. You and the others responsible for their interest may have created some future foresters. Wouldn't that be great?