Students learn about the machinery used in today's harvest operations during the equipment show..
Board members Bill Wynkoop and Danny Bivens at the FT&F exhibitor booth during the recent Oregon Logging Conference.
Talk About Trees facilitator Val Kime teaches about trees and the many products they provide.
For the past several years Oregon Women in Timber, Forests Today & Forever and the Oregon Forest Resource Institute have partnered to provide hundreds of local 4th and 5th grade students with an educational tour of the Oregon Logging Conference.
This year, 500 students “traveled” to the 70th Annual Oregon Logging Conference on Feb. 21-23 at the Lane County Fairgrounds in Eugene, where the tiny tourists learned a little about our state’s timbered past, its present and its future.
The 75-minute presentation included an educational video on the field of forestry, followed by a Talk About Trees presentation designed to foster awareness of, and appreciation for, the role that trees and forests play in our daily lives.
Adding to the lessons, professional foresters gave the students a glimpse into their role in utilizing and protecting our woodlands, while providing an up-close and personal look at the tools of the trade. The foresters shared their cruiser’s vest with its compass, clinometer, D-tape, increment borer, maps, aerial photos — and of course — the essential rain gear and heavy caulked boots.
The field trip concluded with a tour of the outdoor equipment show, where students learned about some of the scientific and technological innovations that are used in the practice of forestry today. The “tourists” viewed the massive logging equipment, watched the chainsaw carving and saw how a logger scales a tall tree. When the wide-eyed youngsters were asked what they thought one particularly huge piece of equipment might cost, the guesses ranged from one quarter to $900,000!
Our goal in presenting this program is to increase awareness of and appreciation for the value of trees and forests, and to further understanding of sustainable forest management and its practice. This program is particularly pertinent to classes studying the state of Oregon, its history and its resources. It is free of charge and transportation costs are reimbursed for participating schools.
To further its mission of promoting forest stewardship through education, Forests Today & Forever also hosted its first exhibitors booth at the OLC, providing the visiting public with information on its goals, its programs and some of the main issues facing the public and the forest sector in the coming years.
Next year, the 71th Annual Oregon Logging Conference will take place Feb. 18-21. For more information, please contact Program Coordinator LaRae Ash at (541)998-6438 or by email.
Hope to see you at the conference!