Jordon Ryder of the Oregon Dept. of Forestry, teaches a student how to use a clinometer to measure the height of a tree.

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If you have ever had to make a group decision with your family, such as what movie to go to or where to vacation, you have an idea of how hard it can be to reach a family consensus. Coming to agreement on how to manage Grandma Petersen's land is the dilemma facing our Forest Field Day students.

Each student is asked to take the role of one of four "family" members to decide what to do with the property. Each student has a different viewpoint of what is important and what should be done. Kelly wants to protect the wildlife, while Chris wants to use the land for recreation. Sam is concerned that the soil and water resources are protected, and Alex thinks that the forest resources should be utilized to generate income. Although this is just an exercise, the dilemma demonstrates some of the complexities of land management on both public and private lands today.

The Forest Field Day Program helps students gain a better understanding of these issues by providing in-class curriculum, a day in the forest with hands-on educational activities led by resource professionals, a pre-field trip in-class presentation and a multi-disciplinary group project.

The curriculum guides — which are correlated to the state and federal benchmarks — are provided free of charge and include both in-class lessons and background information, as well as field data sheets for collecting information during the Forest Field Day, which are held on private forestland. Teacher guides and student workbooks are provided, as is transportation and coordination of the volunteer resource professionals.

During the field day, hands-on learning activities are held at four stations through which students rotate. At the forestry station, they learn some basic timber measurement techniques as well as gain a brief overview of sustainable forestry management approaches. At the wildlife station, students practice inventory plot sampling and discover how to evaluate wildlife habitat. Through the soil and water stations, they are provided with a basic understanding of soil composition, erosion and compaction and are introduced to the importance of riparian buffers and their affect upon stream function and water quality. During the recreation walk, students learn of the issues inherent to allowing the public access to both public and private lands.