Awards for PLT’s Explore Your Environment

Posted on January 12, 2022February 11, 2022 by Vanessa Bullwinkle

Published last year, PLT’s Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide continues to get praise, and we’re thrilled about the editorial reviews and awards it has received so far!

Academics’ Choice Smart Book Award

In December, Academics’ Choice presented a 2021 Smart Book Award to Project Learning Tree and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative for its Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide in recognition of “mind-building excellence.”

The independent Academics’ Choice Awards program and its seal of excellence are recognized worldwide by consumers and educational institutions as a mark of genuinely effective learning tools that stimulate the mind and provide the potential for students to fully develop higher order thinking skills.

The Academics’ Choice Advisory Board consists of leading thinkers and graduates from Princeton, Harvard, George Washington University, and other reputable educational institutions. The board, in collaboration with product-appropriate volunteer reviewers, selects the winners. Entries are judged by category, subject area, and grade level, and evaluated based on standardized criteria rooted in constructivist learning theory. The Academics’ Choice Smart Book Award is a prestigious seal of educational quality.

“Perfect timing for this book to be released! After sitting inside on Zoom for hundreds of hours, kids and adults alike need to get outside and learn! As a teacher with 20 years of experience, this book is one of a kind. The lessons are easy to follow, aligned with standards and offer great ways to differentiate instruction. Another strong reason I support this curriculum and approach is that it teaches more about how to think, not what to think. Buy this book, get out of the classroom, and give your students a chance to interact, explore and discover the world around them!” — Academics’ Choice Award Reviewer

Read more comments from Academics’ Choice Awards reviewers about PLT’s Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide.

Kirkus Star, Top 100, and Other Recognitions from Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus has been a leader in the publishing industry since 1933 and is an industry-trusted source for honest and accessible reviews.

You may have noticed a Kirkus Review on the back cover of a best-selling book.

Kirkus reviews around 10,000 books every year, from big publishing houses to small presses, genre publishers, and more.

That’s why we were honored to receive a great book review last June, followed by The Kirkus Star, which is awarded to books of remarkable merit, and a feature in Kirkus Reviews in August.

Most recently, in December, we learned we made their Top 100 list for Best Indie Books of 2021!

“An important and engaging tool for teachers. The activities are consistently fun throughout and offer a path toward creating a new generation focused on environmental issues.” — EXPLORE YOUR ENVIRONMENT | Kirkus Reviews

Design Awards

Not only is the content being noticed, but so is the graphic design and layout of the activity guide!

We spent a lot of time with educators to improve the organization and layout of the guide. New icons and graphics not only make Explore Your Environment look contemporary and visually appealing, but they also make the guide easy and efficient to use.

Hermes Platinum Award

The Hermes Awards are one of the oldest and largest creative competitions in the world, administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, and Explore Your Environment won a platinum Hermes Creative Award.

Winners range in size from individuals to media conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies. Other award winners include well known entities such as Airbnb, Fidelity Investments, PepsiCo, and more.

MarCom Platinum Award

Explore Your Environment also earned a platinum MarCom award for print design.

Since it was founded in 2004, MarCom has grown into one of the world’s largest and most-respected creative competitions. More than 6,500 print and digital entries are submitted from dozens of countries each year.

What Educators Are Saying

Here are just a few of the many testimonials we’ve received from educators who have used Explore Your Environment with their students.

“The guide is attractive, easy to follow, and perfectly outlines everything needed for a flawless environmental education experience.” — Mandy Kern, nonformal educator (Kansas)

“The strategies for differentiation and enrichment help to meet the diverse needs of my students and make the experience relevant.” — Robin C. McLean, Ed.D., Career and Technical Education middle school teacher (New Jersey)

“These activities provoke students’ curiosities and inspire wonder. They are engaging and easy to implement.” — Megan Lee, 3^rd grade teacher (Colorado)

PLT would love to know what you think of our new activity guide!

Drop a note to Jaclyn Stallard, PLT’s Director of Curriculum, at Jaclyn.Stallard@forests.org.

New Releases and Free Resources: PLT Year in Review

Posted on November 30, 2021January 17, 2022 by Vanessa Bullwinkle

Project Learning Tree uses trees and forests as windows on the world to engage youth — from early childhood through to young adult — in exploring nature. Our activities are fun and full of learning! They’re flexible and easy to use in all kinds of educational settings. They connect children to the outdoors, increase young people’s awareness and knowledge about their environment, introduce green careers, and provide real-world opportunities for students to develop and apply skills like STEM, critical thinking, problem-solving, communications, and youth voice.

As 2021 draws to a close, we wanted to highlight our newest releases, as well as the training and resources we deliver for free, thanks to our partners and sponsors.

Bookmark and explore all our resources and professional development opportunities!

NEW! Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide

This 432-page guide (available in print or e-book) is our most popular new release in 2021, with nearly 10,000 copies already sold!

It contains 50 hands-on, multidisciplinary activities to connect students to nature and the outdoors, no matter if you live in a rural or urban area. The activities combine science with art, English, math, and social studies. Each activity is tied to academic standards and other benchmarks. They include ways to take learning outdoors, incorporate STEM, and differentiate instruction depending on the individual needs of your students and many more new features designed for flexible instruction.

Learn more about this guide and all it offers in this 3-minute video:

Featured in Kirkus Reviews (see page 253) —“ An important and engaging tool for teachers. The activities are consistently fun throughout and offer a path toward creating a new generation focused on environmental issues.”
Awarded The Kirkus Star — “One of the most coveted designations in the book industry, the Kirkus Star marks books of exceptional merit.”

To help you get the most out of your Explore Your Environment guide, we developed a self-paced, interactive online course, and our PLT state programs offer in-person, blended, and virtual professional development workshops (tailored to your state, educational setting, and grade level).

Plus, curated resources, downloadable student pages, recommended reading, correlations to academic standards, suggested Units of Instruction, and much, much more! Download these resources for free at plt.org/myk8guide.

NEW! Activity Collections

Not ready to purchase the full Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide yet? Try an Activity Collection instead!

Organized around a specific theme for a particular grade level, each collection offers three activities from the new guide, available for purchase as a downloadable PDF.

The activities that comprise each collection can be used as individual, stand-alone lessons, or all together as a cohesive unit of instruction using a storyline technique.

Trillions of Trees for grades 3-5 and Nature of Fire for grades 6-8 are the newest releases in this series. Others include Sensational Trees for grades K-2, Biodiversity Blitz for grades 3-5, and Discover Your Urban Forest for grades 6-8.

Purchase these Activity Collections directly from www.shop.plt.org, or ask your PLT State Coordinator about a mini in-person or virtual professional development workshop.

FREE! Learn About Forests Toolkit

It’s hard for people unfamiliar with teaching kids to know how to translate good intentions into effective, age-appropriate lessons. Weyerhaeuser partnered with PLT and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative to develop PLT’s free Learn About Forests toolkit, in part to better equip its own natural resource professionals with a way to connect with students.

Learn About Forests consists of 12 hands-on activities to do with children ages 10 to 16. The activities provide non-educators an easy-to-follow path to confidently teach about themes related to sustainable forest management, stewardship, and green careers. These are topics that many of today’s young people want to know more about, for example:

Every Tree for Itself: Explore how trees compete with each other for nutrients, sunlight, space, and water
Living with Fire: Explore the burnability of different fuels and the role of fire in ecosystems
What’s in a Label: Understand what certification is and why it matters
Who Works in This Forest: Learn about forest-related careers

The free supporting toolkit provides tips and tricks for working with youth, for example:

Tell a captivating story. You might start each activity by sharing a personal anecdote from your own experience.
Model thinking skills. When the group discovers something unfamiliar, you might say, “I don’t know–let’s explore that together” or “What do you think is the best solution?
Silence is okay. Give youth adequate time to process information and respond.
Focus on the experience. Try not to get bogged down in the details by encouraging youth to make their own observations, ask questions, and draw conclusions.

Download the activities and toolkit at www.plt.org/learnaboutforests.

For a similar project that engages younger children, try our Pocket Guide: Seeds to Trees (for ages 3-6), which was developed with support from International Paper.

FREE! Forest Literacy Framework

Also launched this year, PLT’s Forest Literacy Framework translates the language of forests and sustainable forest management into concepts for everyone at any age. It provides a roadmap to hundreds of hands-on activities PLT has developed to use with youth ages 5 to 18, organized by grade level, hot topic (such as climate change, wildfire, and urban forests), and theme (such as why forests matter and sustainability).

The framework offers 100 forest concepts for grades K-12, organized into four themes:

What is a forest?
Why do forests matter?
How do we sustain our forests?
What is our responsibility to forests?

Thanks to the U.S. Forest Service for their support and collaboration on this project.

Learn more and download the framework at www.plt.org/forestliteracy.

Let Us Know How We’re Doing!

We’d love to hear your feedback about our new resources and ways we can improve them. PLT is all about continuous improvement and we welcome and invite your suggestions about how we can make our work even more relevant to you and the youth you reach.
Please write to us at PLT@forests.org.

Connecting Students, Indigenous Knowledge, and Minnesota Forests

Posted on November 3, 2021December 3, 2021 by Laura Duffey

Editor’s Note: This article was adapted and modified for PLT.org; a version of this story originally appeared in the October 2021 edition of Roots, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ employee newsletter. We hope that this story of collaboration will inspire others to work with Indigenous Elders and educators to tailor Project Learning Tree (PLT) activities to honor the experiences and leadership of Indigenous Peoples.

Often the best ideas emerge from a combination of diverse viewpoints, good timing, and personal experience. Here is a story of how the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources used this trifecta to create a series of Project Learning Tree (PLT) lessons to help teachers connect students in grades K-8 to forests using Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.

Alphabet soup of diverse viewpoints

The beginning of any partnership story often begins with a hefty serving of alphabet (acronym) soup. It’s an important backstory for understanding how and why this project came about.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a non-profit organization which advances forest sustainability through its work across the areas of conservation, community engagement, education, and through its third-party certification standards for sustainable forest management. Minnesota is one of SFI’s largest certificate holders, with nearly all state-managed land certified as well-managed. Committees in each state, called SFI State Implementation Committees (SICs), do on-the-ground outreach and collaboration to ensure that local forests are managed properly and that communities are aware of the value of certified sustainable forests.

In 2017, PLT joined SFI to increase the reach of forest-focused environmental education throughout North America and around the world. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has sponsored PLT programming in the state since 1978, and two DNR staff participate with the Minnesota SIC: the forest certification consultant and Minnesota’s PLT coordinator.

Child scraping bark to make kinnickinnik — Scraping bark to make *kinnickinnik*

Good timing

In 2017, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) began adding Indigenous-based learning benchmarks in science, language arts, and social studies for students to achieve before graduation.

In 2018, the Minnesota SIC was looking for ways to strengthen relationships between tribes and people who want to manage forests sustainably.

We wondered: How could SFI invest in the next generation of forest users and stewards?

At the same time, opportunity knocked: PLT was updating their forest-based lessons. Could we add local Indigenous content to these lessons?

The Minnesota SIC group agreed: This is a great opportunity to work with tribes and create lessons that ALL Minnesota teachers could use. Connecting children with Indigenous knowledge and engaging lessons could nurture the next generation of forest stewards, especially in tribal communities. And we were off to the races…

young woman in a purple jingle dress — Larissa Harris-Juip, who wrote the PLT adaptions

Personal experience

Imperative to our success was getting tribal support. The SIC connected me with a friend of a friend in Grand Rapids, who used her personal relationship with Ojibwe tribal educators to sponsor a conversation in 2019 between their tribe and our SIC. Together we listened to each other’s personal stories, discussed challenges, and slowly built some trust.

The tribal leaders we worked with understandably insisted that we find the right person to write the lessons. We needed someone who is a tribal member, has a teaching license, and understands forests and outdoor education. We found the perfect candidate in Larissa Harris-Juip, a former DNR naturalist, teacher on the Fond du Lac Reservation, and current doctoral candidate.

The SIC paid Larissa to research and enhance seven PLT forestry lessons. One lesson, Respecting Mother Earth, uses stories told by elders to share how communities used specific Minnesota trees to produce maple syrup, poles for homes, fuel for fires, snowshoe frames, medicines, canoes, and other important tools. When taking something from nature, many Native American traditions include leaving a mindful offering, a common practice in cultures around the world to honor the natural resources we use and rely on. This lesson shares traditional stories and teaches students how to make kinnickinnick (traditional tobacco made from the inner bark of red osier dogwood trees). This lesson also helps children meet key science benchmarks by learning about Indigenous technology to solve problems.

When working with partners, trust is key – and trust takes time

Many educators are rightly concerned that they teach about Indigenous Peoples with knowledge and respect. Here are some things to keep in mind while collaborating with Indigenous community partners:

middle aged man standing in snow — Larry Smallwood, who contributed oral stories to the PLT lesson adaptions

If you are unsure how an Indigenous person would like to be referred to, be respectful and ask.

No one appreciates being stereotyped. This bears repeating, especially if you are in a position to influence others. Use thoughtful, intentional language and consider what communities need, as well as who is best positioned to partner with you all.

Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous culture are alive and thriving. It’s OK to share stories from long ago but be cautious not to depict these communities as only existing in the distant past.

Recognize and learn about Indigenous influences on language and technology. We use it every day!

Take care not to use language that could be possessive (ex. America’s Native people) or describes Indigenous Peoples as a monolith (ex. identify the community’s tribal band or nation, like Dakota or Ojibwe).

Learn about the land you live on, including the culture and languages of the original inhabitants, treaty history and, in some places, the forcible removal and relocation of Native communities. Learn how relative newcomers have treated Indigenous people over the last two centuries, and what communities are doing today to celebrate Native heritage and contributions to the natural resources sector.

Bookmark our other tips and suggestions in “Native American Heritage Month Resources for Educators” and let us know in the comments and on social media how you plan to use the activity and project ideas with your students.

graphic detailing the names of the 7 adapted lessons: Respecting Mother Earth, Who Cares for This Forest, A Forest of Balance, The Forest Provides, 400-Acre Wood, and the Star in the Cottonwood Tree — Bookmark and explore all seven adapted PLT lessons

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the SIC members who helped make these lessons a reality: Minnesota SIC Chair Rick Horton, University of Minnesota Extension Educator Charlie Blinn, Minnesota forestry advocate Kathleen Preece, and Jerry Richards of West Fraser.

Thanks also go to Becky LaPlant of the Blandin Foundation, DNR Tribal Liaison Bradley Harrington, MDE Tribal Liaison Jane Harstad, the Minnesota Tribal Education Committee, and Annette Drewes, former DNR clean water specialist and current forest restoration collaboration manager in Bemidji for their support and review of the project and materials.

Much appreciation goes to Larissa Harris-Juip for her thorough and thoughtful work writing and curating the lessons. We also want to thank Gerald White (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), Shirley Nordrum (Thunderbird Woman), University of Minnesota Extension, and Lowana Greensky, and Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe for their guidance and understanding.

New PLT Activity Collections: Nature of Fire for Grades 6-8

Posted on September 20, 2021October 11, 2021 by Jackie Stallard

Project Learning Tree recently launched a new series of theme-based activity collections that focus on specific grade levels and relevant topics.

Nature of Fire is our latest release that features three PLT activities for educators of students in grades 6-8 that invite learners to investigate wildfire and ecosystem change.

The activity collection is available for purchase from PLT’s Shop as a downloadable PDF for $5.99.

Other PLT Activity Collections include:

Fire: Friend or Foe?

Ecosystems are constantly changing. They may change slowly over time, through processes such as succession, in which plant species are replaced by other species. They may also change more rapidly through a disturbance such as fire.

In many ecosystems, fire is a natural change agent that can bring positive changes. It can open up the forest canopy to more sunlight, recycle nutrients in the soil or help some plants regenerate.

However, as the human population expands into wildland areas, wildfire is an increasing threat to people and structures, putting public safety at risk. Decades of fire suppression have caused a build-up of fuel in some ecosystems, which can lead to more intense, devastating fires. In addition, the changing climate is intensifying fire risk with reduced precipitation, warmer temperatures, and stronger winds that can dry out trees and stoke flames. Uncontrolled wildfire can also negatively impact human health, public safety, water quality, species habitat and increases carbon emissions.

Sustainable Forest Management

Raising the awareness of fire management and the risk of wildfires, as well as the undesirable effects of fire such as the impact on carbon emissions, water quality, species habitat, human health and public safety, are considered critical in sustainable forest management. Management techniques to limit the undesirable impacts of wildfire include prescribed burning, stand thinning, or other treatments to reduce the levels of hazardous fuels.

Fire management is a key part of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Forest Management Standard. The new SFI Fire Resilience and Awareness Objective requires SFI-certified organizations to limit susceptibility of forests to undesirable impacts of wildfire and to raise community awareness of fire benefits, risks, and minimization measures. For more detailed information, see the SFI 2022 Standards and Rules.

Sustainable forest management includes strategies to reduce catastrophic wildfire, ensure resilient forests, maintain forests, and restore degraded lands. Resilient forests are necessary to confront today’s challenging environmental issues, including wildfire and climate change.

Nature of Fire: Grades 6-8 Activities

Nature of Fire features three PLT activities for educators of students in grades 6-8. Designed to be flexible, the activities can be used as individual, stand-alone lessons, or all together as a cohesive unit of instruction using a storyline technique.

Nothing Succeeds Like Succession

Students read a story about forest succession and investigate the connections between plants, animals, and successional stages in a local ecosystem.
Living with Fire

Students learn about the three elements that a fire needs to burn and find out how this “fire triangle” can be used to prevent and manage wildland fires.

Burning Issues

Students graph changes in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) over the course of several decades to explore the relationship between CO₂, the Earth’s climate, and wildfires ⁠— and suggest ways to reduce the negative effects of fire.

Learning Progressions

Storylines provide connectedness and continuity to individual activities and can serve as the instructional “glue” that holds areas of knowledge and skills together. The activities in Nature of Fire may be linked together into a unit of instruction using a storyline technique, such as the one that follows.

Guiding Question: How is wildland fire both a cause and effect of ecosystem change?

Storyline: Students investigate the role of fire in ecosystem change.

The sequence of individual activities supports this storyline:

Beginning with “Nothing Succeeds Like Succession,” introduce the concept that forests and other ecosystems are in a constant state of change. Succession is a pattern of change that takes place over time, while fire and other disturbances can bring more immediate changes.
Use “Living with Fire” to explore the elements needed for a fire to burn—the “fire triangle”—which also can be used to prevent and manage wildland fires. Use the Wildfire Safety Checklist for students to assess wildfire safety on-site or at home.
Conclude with “Burning Issues,” which invites students to examine the relationship among rising CO₂ levels, global temperatures, and the extent of wildland fires, and to draw conclusions based on evidence. Culminate the storyline by encouraging students to identify ways to reduce the effects they have identified.

New Features Within Each Activity

In addition to the typical elements that educators have come to rely on from PLT, the following new features in our theme-based series will further help educators adapt the activities for specific groups and settings.

Academic Standards

Classroom educators and nonformal educators alike need to ensure that instruction helps diverse learners meet rigorous academic benchmarks. Each PLT activity displays explicit connections to practices and concepts mandated by the following national academic standards. Here is an example from “Nothing Succeeds Like Succession.”

Take It Outside!

Describes how to extend student learning into the outdoors.

Differentiated Instruction Strategies

- - Cooperative Learning
  - ELA Skills
  - Hands-On Learning
  - Higher-Order Thinking
  - Multiple Solution Pathways
  - Nonlinguistic Representations
  - Personal Connections
  - Student Voice

Did You Know?

Forest Facts present interesting insights into forests as global solutions for environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

Career Corner

Introduces youth to forest-related careers.

Purchase Nature of Fire now from PLT’s Shop for $5.99.

5 Reasons to Take PLT’s New Online Professional Development Course

Posted on August 13, 2021October 8, 2021 by Ana Leirner

Project Learning Tree’s Explore Your Environment: K–8 Activity Guide is our newest flagship curriculum. Now, we’ve launched an enhancement to the guide: online professional development! As with all PLT online professional development, it follows best practices for adult learning while providing the flexibility of a self-paced online course.

Here are five reasons to take PLT’s Explore Your Environment Online Professional Development Course.

1. Be confident that you’re getting the most out of your guide

The Explore Your Environment Online Professional Development Course takes you through an interactive journey that explores key features of the guide. From using the guide’s icons and indexes to find an activity that’s right for you, to using activities to meet national academic standards, by the end of the course you will be confident that you’re making the most of all PLT’s Explore Your Environment Guide has to offer.

Through the course’s guidance, activity simulations, video demonstrations, reflection questions, and action planning, you will be able to–

Lead activities outdoors and meet your teaching objectives by using the guide’s activities and recommended strategies.
Modify and scaffold PLT activities as needed to honor youths’ contexts, backgrounds, and strengths and shape activities based on their culture, race, and ethnicity.
Build units of instruction using PLT activities to support the achievement of instructional goals (e.g., academic standards, teaching outdoors, STEM).
Use curated resources to support and supplement instruction.

2. Create your learning path

The course consists of seven self-paced online modules that you can access anytime, anywhere. It offers differentiated pathways, so you can focus your learning on the elements and activities that are most important to you and your students. Choose your path based on the grade band of your students (K-2; 3-5; 6-8) or the setting in which you work with youth (formal education; non-formal education; standalone events or programs).

You also have the option to select specific modules to review at a time or complete the entire course to receive a certificate of completion and be eligible for Continuing Education Units (CEU)* or Continuing Forestry Education (CFE) credits**.

We invite you to preview the Course Welcome for a glimpse of PLT’s newest on-demand Online Professional Development Course and its modules.

“I liked the flow of the content and the way the course was set up. It was easy to read through the information and move onto the next part.”
– Jessica Alba, Watershed Forest Stewardship Educator, Watershed Agricultural Council

3. Learn strategies for teaching outdoors

More than ever, people are turning to the natural world to relax, recreate, and learn. When youth learn about the world around them, it creates a vital connection with the natural world. And yet, teaching outdoors can be an intimidating idea. Maybe you are used to teaching in the classroom, or you work outdoors but don’t have experience leading activities with youth? PLT’s professional development builds your skills and confidence to teach outdoors!

To complement the Explore Your Environment guide’s activities and empower you to take students outdoors, our online course provides firsthand tips about teaching outdoors from seasoned educators. The course explores questions such as:

What should I consider when deciding to teach outdoors?
How do I manage student behavior outdoors?
How do I ensure they are comfortable outside?
What are key things to keep in mind if I’m working with elementary or middle school learners?
And many more!

Want to continue to build your skills and confidence for teaching outdoors through hands-on experience? Find a PLT in-person or blended professional development workshop offered in your state! Whether you’ve been teaching formally or informally, for two months or 20 years, there is always more to learn about being an effective educator.

4. Get practical tips from seasoned educators

In addition to strategies for teaching outdoors, the Explore Your Environment Online Professional Development Course incorporates lots of tips on how best to lead activities from seasoned facilitators and educators who have used the activities with their own students. From adapting activities for students with limited mobilities to overcoming possible logistical challenges, their tips will help you modify activities to meet your students’ needs and successfully lead PLT activities, indoors or outdoors, in urban or rural settings.

“[The course is] a great way to learn how to engage with students in different ways, both via in-person activities and virtual ones revolving around nature.”
– Jocelyn Perez-Blanco, Educator and Founder of Herban Garden

5. Create an action plan

The course takes you step-by-step through one or more selected activities. It prompts you to reflect and modify the activity to honor your students’ prior knowledge and lived experiences and their cultures, backgrounds, races, and ethnicities.

You will leave the course with an action plan customized to the needs of your learners and your specific setting. You will also receive an exclusive “Activity At-a-Glance” handout for quick reference, so you don’t need to take the entire guide with you when leading the activity.

Ready to get started?

Check out the Course Welcome preview for more information and a glimpse of the course.
Purchase PLT’s Explore Your Environment Online Professional Development Course from shop.plt.org.
Find an in-person or blended professional development workshop offered in your state.

* Continuing Education Units offered vary by state. Please contact your PLT State Coordinator to learn more about your eligibility for CEU credits.
** Pending approval by Society of American Foresters.

New PLT Activity Collections: Trillions of Trees for Grades 3-5

Posted on August 13, 2021October 11, 2021 by Jackie Stallard

Project Learning Tree recently launched a new series of theme-based activity collections that focus on specific grade levels and topics.

Trillions of Trees is our latest release featuring three PLT activities for educators of students in grades 3-5. The series invites learners to investigate the unique characteristics of different tree species and discover how best to plan, plant, and care for trees in their community.

The activity collection is available for purchase from PLT’s Shop as a downloadable PDF for $5.95.

Other PLT Activity Collections include:

Why Trillions of Trees?

There are approximately three trillion trees on Earth. Trees are invaluable assets to people and the environment. Climate change is one of our most pressing global challenges and everyone has the power to help be a part of the solution by planting trees and making sure they mature with proper care.

This Activity Collection will help your group plant the right tree in the right place and for the right reason. Students will learn to identify trees as a first step to selecting a tree that will perform well at their site. The activities will also help your group plan for continued maintenance and care, which is critical for the success of any tree planting project.

The United Nations (UN) has declared a Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030). In this decade, targeted initiatives to restore forests and other ecosystems across the globe will support economic resiliency, protect soils and watersheds, improve wildlife habitat, better confront a changing climate, and create a more sustainable future.

The initiative is a rallying call to work toward the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, an international blueprint to achieve a more sustainable future for the world by 2030. The Decade of Ecosystem Restoration includes restoration through tree planting and maintenance and thousands of on-the-ground projects to help meet those global goals.

Trillions of Trees: Grades 3-5 Activities

Trillions of Trees features three PLT activities for educators of students in grades 3-5. Designed to be flexible, the activities can be used as individual, stand-alone lessons, or all together as a cohesive unit of instruction using a storyline technique.

1. Tree ID
Students learn about the identifying features of trees, including their leaves, bark, twigs, flowers, fruit, and seeds.

2. Trees in Trouble
Students examine trees for signs of damage or poor health and investigate conditions for maintaining trees and other plants.

3. Plant a Tree
Students plan and carry out their own tree-planting project.

Learning Progressions

Storylines provide connectedness and continuity to individual activities and can serve as the instructional glue that holds areas of knowledge and skills together. The activities in Trillions of Trees may be linked together into a unit of instruction using a storyline technique, such as the one that follows.

Guiding Question: How do we identify what trees to plant and where to plant them?

Storyline: Students investigate the identifying features of different trees and use their understanding of trees to plan, plant, and care for trees in their community.

The sequence of individual activities supports this storyline:

Beginning with “Tree ID,” introduce students to some of the identifying characteristics of trees and challenge them to identify different trees through these characteristics. Point out that identifying trees helps people to determine the most suitable tree species to plant on a certain site and to determine the best care for trees.
Use “Trees in Trouble” to explore the conditions for healthy tree growth. In this activity, students begin to recognize symptoms and possible causes of poor health and also investigate the effects of different growing conditions.
Conclude with “Plant a Tree,” which invites students to plan and plant a tree at their site or in their community. Encourage students to consider the growing conditions of the proposed planting location to determine the best tree species and care plan to ensure tree health.

New Features Within Each Activity

Academic Standards
Classroom educators and nonformal educators alike need to ensure that instruction helps diverse learners meet rigorous academic benchmarks. Each PLT activity displays explicit connections to practices and concepts mandated by the following national academic standards. Here is an example from “Trees in Trouble.”

Take It Outside!

Describes how to extend student learning into the outdoors.

Differentiated Instruction Strategies

- - Cooperative Learning
  - ELA Skills
  - Hands-On Learning
  - Higher-Order Thinking
  - Multiple Solution Pathways
  - Nonlinguistic Representations
  - Personal Connections
  - Student Voice

Did You Know?

Forest Facts present interesting insights into forests as global solutions for environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

Career Corner

Introduces youth to forest-related careers.

Purchase Trillions of Trees now from PLT’s Shop for $5.95.

Forest Literacy Framework: Another Tool to Connect with Trees

Posted on July 8, 2021September 29, 2023 by Jackie Stallard

Project Learning Tree’s new Forest Literacy Framework translates the complex language of forests, trees, forest practices, and sustainable forest management into concepts that everyone should know by the time they graduate from high school. It is designed to increase people’s understanding of forests and empower them to take actions that benefit forests and people.

Forests and our shared future

Our collective future will depend on people better understanding the values and benefits of forests because they are so important to solving global challenges. Forests mitigate climate change by capturing carbon from the atmosphere and wood products from forests store carbon. Forests help conserve species at risk by providing habitat. Forests also purify air and water and reduce the threat of droughts and floods.

Forests are renewable. They are reliable, regenerative, and restorative. Forests sustain communities and economies by supporting diverse career opportunities and driving economic activity. Providing recreational spaces and sustaining traditional resource uses and places for spiritual renewal are yet other areas where forests play an outsized role.

PLT’s Forest Literacy Framework (or FLF) distills this essential knowledge into age-appropriate core concepts that can be applied in formal or informal settings. It benefits youth, educators, and communities large and small.

The Forest Literacy Framework was jointly developed by PLT and PLT Canada, with partial funding from the USDA Forest Service. Input from a 16-person Advisory Panel represented a wide spectrum of stakeholder engagement and ensured content accuracy, age-level appropriateness, and bi-national continuity. PLT’s Forest Literacy Framework is a natural extension of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute’s Forest Literacy Plan, which developed the concept.

Three Options to Engage

The Forest Literacy Framework offers three options for starting your forest literary journey. Download the complete Forest Literacy Framework or connect to each section by grade level, hot topic, and theme below. Have a look to decide which way(s) work best for you:

1.) Start with an engaging question

To use this approach, focus on pages 8–17 or go to the section on Themes at www.plt.org/forestliteracy, where you will see Forest Literacy Framework concepts organized by four overarching themes:

Theme 1: What Is a Forest?
Theme 2: Why Do Forests Matter?
Theme 3: How Do We Sustain Our Forests?
Theme 4: What is Our Responsibility to Forests?

These questions can be used as engaging phenomena to connect students to learning in meaningful ways. Leading with phenomena directly connects instruction to learners’ homes, communities, and cultures, thus making teaching and learning more diverse, inclusive, and relevant. Once you’ve chosen the theme you want to focus on, visit that section in the FLF to dive deeper into sub-themes and concepts to explore.

2.) Start with an age or grade level

To leverage this approach, visit pages 20–35 or select the age and grade level of your learners at www.plt.org/forestliteracy. This section of the resource explores forest concepts and topics that are most appropriate for the grades/ages with whom you work.

While this section is organized by grade level, it is important to recognize that these lines are not hard and fast. Learning represents a continuum, and you always have options to differentiate instruction for your target audience.

The grade-level sections provide guiding questions to help construct teaching and learning about trees and forests. Other resources in this section include connections to subject areas, topics, core ideas, and academic standards; age-appropriate, hands-on examples; and real-world connections to community programs or other resources.

3.) Start with a current event or hot topic

Last but not least, pages 36–40 of the framework address forest concepts by “hot topic.” You can also connect directly to the Hot Topics section at www.plt.org/forestliteracy.

We have five topics available now:

Urban Forests
Climate Change
Green Jobs
Wildfire
Public Health

Once you’ve selected the topic, you’ll be guided by concept and grade level to use the topic as a hook to forest concepts. A sixth topic, Indigenous Connection To Land, is under development, and others are planned.

Connections with Explore Your Environment

You may be wondering how the Forest Literary Framework relates to PLT’s new Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide. Both resources reference one another, so you can easily see how different PLT activities reinforce forest literacy concepts.

What’s more, our new online professional development (launching in August!) takes participants through three activities that advance the understanding of the themes presented in the Forest Literacy Framework. The online course also connects the hot topics detailed above with the 50 hands-on activities in Explore Your Environment.

Continue the Conversation

The Forest Literacy Framework is a living document, always changing and evolving. Please consider sharing and helping to improve it by completing a three-question online survey!

PLT’s New Video Brings Forest-Focused Education to Life

Posted on July 7, 2021August 13, 2021 by Jennifer Byerly

We are proud to share a new video about Project Learning Tree, produced in collaboration with BBC StoryWorks, and featuring USDA Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen.

The video, entitled “The Forest Classrooms Raising Responsible Children”, was presented at the Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit as part of the Better Lives Through Better Business series that explores the brands and organizations around the world working to improve global sustainability and support future generations. PLT is a program of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to advance sustainability through forest-focused collaboration.

The video helps tell Project Learning Tree’s story through the voices of Forest Service Chief Christiansen, local youth, and PLT-trained educators, and features a handful of activities that can be found in PLT’s new Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide, an award-winning collection of 50 hands-on educational activities that get children ages five through fourteen outdoors to learn about the natural world.

In addition to the new guide, Project Learning Tree offers a variety of resources for parents, educators, sustainability professionals, and community leaders, including:

Free family activities
Downloadable Activity Collections
Professional development and continuing education
New Forest Literacy Framework: A Guide to Teaching and Learning About Forests

Please share this video and connect with your local PLT State network to access high-quality professional development tailored to your state’s standards and environment.

Interested in supporting PLT’s goal to get more youth learning about and in nature? Please consider a one-time or recurring gift to Project Learning Tree. Visit plt.org/donate or contact us to learn more!

Preschool in Virginia Earns Recognition as PLT’s First Certified Early Childhood GreenSchool

Posted on June 4, 2021October 14, 2022 by Vanessa Bullwinkle

The Country Day School (CDS) celebrated an environmental education milestone today when the school became certified by Project Learning Tree’s (PLT) GreenSchools program. The school in McLean, VA, near Washington D.C., is the first early childhood center in the country to be honored as a certified PLT GreenSchool.

PLT’s GreenSchool certification recognizes the efforts of teachers and students to make their school a greener and healthier place. The Country Day School has taken significant steps to enhance and fully utilize its school grounds, reduce energy use, conserve water, recycle, reduce waste, and improve air quality, among other projects. Certification also recognizes the school’s strong commitment to engaging students in environmental and sustainability education and taking students outdoors to learn.

Students and teachers at The Country Day School designed and implemented action projects to complete the five investigations for certification. Some projects included: partnering with a local organization to plant six new trees on the school campus, starting a school-wide recycling initiative to utilize recycled materials in the curriculum, building a platform for the rain barrels used to collect and conserve water for water play activities, creating signs to communicate to families to turn off their cars at carpool to reduce air pollution.

“I would like to thank the Country Day School staff. They worked through the pandemic year to complete this extensive project. The community rallied together to research and support this project. The children were very engaged. They had a wonderful time in the outdoor classrooms learning how to make Country Day greener” said Diane Dunne, CDS Head of School. “Many parents have commented to me about ways the children have brought this project home.”

PLT’s GreenSchools program inspires K-12 students to take responsibility for improving the environment at their school, at home and in their community. PLT’s Early Childhood GreenSchools program specifically meets the needs of early childhood educators and younger learners.

An adult leader guide offers ideas and activities for early childhood educators to green their centers while facilitating environmental experiences with their students through art, movement, sensory exploration, and time outdoors – all of which are inherently appealing to young children. A set of student investigations teach young children about their environment and how they can make a difference while developing their skills in language, mathematics, and science. These resources can be downloaded for free at https://www.plt.org/greenschools/early-childhood/.

“More than 5,000 schools across the country participate in the PLT GreenSchools program, but only a few have done everything it takes to achieve certification,” said Jessica Kaknevicius, Vice President of Education for the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). PLT is an initiative of SFI. “The Country Day School is even more extraordinary as it gives the youngest of learners a voice and a role in the projects they undertake.”

The Country Day School is an independent private preschool and kindergarten. The campus includes 9 playgrounds and 4 wooded acres used for outdoor classroom learning activities. The CDS program’s focus is on developing children’s pleasure and excitement for learning. Country Day is NAEYC accredited and serves children 18 months to 6 years old.

PLT GreenSchools Honored With 10th Anniversary of Green Ribbon Schools Awards

Posted on May 7, 2021July 9, 2021 by Jennifer Byerly

Ten years ago, many national and state agencies and organizations joined together to urge the US Department of Education to help promote sustainable school facilities as a proven means to engage students in hands-on learning and increase achievement. The group urged the Department to create an award to provide incentive for more green school activity across the United States. Today, the award is known as the Green Ribbon School program, serving as a symbol of green school excellence.

This year, we are thrilled to announce that many registered PLT GreenSchools have been recognized as awardees of the US Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools (ED-GRS) program. They are among the 27 schools, three early learning centers, five districts, and five post-secondary institutions that are being honored for their innovative efforts to:

reduce environmental impact and utility costs
improve health and wellness
ensure effective environmental and sustainability education

Among these outstanding, award-winning PLT GreenSchools are:

Alabama — Tuscaloosa City Schools, Tuscaloosa, AL

Florida — Christ the King Catholic School, Jacksonville, FL

Indiana — Discovery Charter School, Porter, IN

North Carolina — Wake County Public School System, Cary, NC

Utah — Shadow Valley Elementary School, Ogden, UT

Virginia — Prince William County Public Schools, Manassas, VA

spread of plt's greenschools investigations — Learn more about PLT’s GreenSchools program and register to access five hands-on, student-driven investigations to green your school.

Wisconsin — Helen R. Godfrey University Child Learning and Care Center, Stevens Point, WI

Highlights from Two Registered PLT GreenSchools

Gain a little inspiration with these highlights from the nomination packets of two registered PLT GreenSchools recognized as 2021 US Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools:

Discovery Charter School

Discovery Charter School (DCS) is a Title I school in Porter, Indiana, comprised of 60 staff and nearly 500 students in grades K through eight. The school was founded in 2010 as the direct result of efforts undertaken by a group of families who wanted a school that incorporated place-based education for their elementary school-age children.

The school building is adjacent to woodlands and the Indiana Dunes National Park, so DCS students have easy access. The neighboring forest and 14,000-year-old dunes provide a natural laboratory for students to make observations, explore plants, animals, waterways, to learn to care for the environment and develop a sense of place.

The school grounds are recognized as a Schoolyard Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. In addition, the native plantings have been recognized with the Shirley Heinze Land Trust’s Bringing Nature Home Award.

The site was designed to benefit pollinators, too! DCS is a certified Monarch Waystation with beehives and pollinator plantings, bat houses, and a rain garden.

Care is taken to spend time outdoors, and DCS is committed to using their outdoor spaces to contribute toward students’ mental, emotional, and physical health. When weather permits, students dine in an outdoor lunch space and learn in an outdoor classroom that allows for outdoor seating and includes a rolling table and chalkboard.

Teachers plan regular field experiences where students reinforce their classroom learning outdoors with a hike or other outdoor activity. The school also has a dedicated school naturalist who prepares mini-lessons and creates resources for teachers, leads outdoor activities, organizes schoolwide events, and helps maintain garden spaces.

Environmental education is a cornerstone of the DCS experience, built into the curriculum of every grade level.

Here is an example of what that might look like across the school:

Kindergarten students use their five senses on the trail to explore the forest adjacent to the school. They visit the Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve once a month throughout the school year to observe seasonal changes.

First Graders are learning about soil through a hands-on program, then explore different soils on school grounds and use soil colors to paint; finally, they put together a classroom worm bin to observe soil formation in action.

Second Graders are integrating STEM while learning about weather, creating structures to withstand different “wind speeds” from a fan.

Third Grade hunts for examples of common and proper nouns (or other parts of speech) as they hike the trail.

Fourth Graders learn to identify and tap maple trees on school grounds; they calculate quantities of sap and syrup by applying volume conversions and adding fractions.

Fifth Graders learn about energy sources, energy use, and conservation; students receive Take Action Kits filled with energy-saving products for their home.

Sixth Graders learn to identify invasive plants in the field and to use appropriate tools to remove them from the native forest ecosystem.

Seventh Grade identifies the need to improve the school’s nature play area through an “Earth Force” project and research outdoor play elements, writing letters to request donations, installing a boundary rope, planting native plants to restore surrounding forestland, and creating a video for fellow students.

Eighth Graders work with the school naturalist and the technology teacher to procure labels for native plants along a school nature trail, complete with QR codes linking to student research on each plant.

Christ the King Catholic School

Christ the King Catholic School (CTK) is an urban parish school in the heart of Jacksonville, Florida. Built in 1955, the school grounds include 40 acres and serves nearly 300 students from grades pre-kindergarten to eighth Grade.

CTK’s green school journey began in 2008, when parents met with the principal and middle school science teacher to discuss how to make the school’s science education more memorable and meaningful. CTK’s subsequent pursuit of sustainability and STEM-focused education has paid off with several awards and accolades, including being designated a Florida Green Apple School and the first STREAM (Science Technology Religion Engineering Art and Math) accredited Catholic School in the State of Florida.

The school is known for its successful agricultural focus, and students participate in agricultural education programs that highlight student choices to reduce environmental impacts by collecting organic matter for composting, sustaining vermicomposting, and using recovered rainwater. CTK has impressive school gardens that feature a salad bar and stone beds. They are also in the process of developing field trips to the extension service canning facility to make canned foods from produce collected from garden harvests, as well as becoming a part of a program to raise chickens through their 4H club.

More than 75% of CTK’s educators have received Project Learning Tree training for environmental science and integrate our hands-on lessons across all grades. Environmental science and STEM are integrated into long-term projects for each grade level. These projects are data-driven and are carefully woven into the curriculum, designed for different progressions of learning:

Kindergarten students study butterflies, propagating lantana and other butterfly “food,” and tagging the butterflies as part of a national butterfly migration study. Students learn about the life cycle of Monarch butterflies by counting caterpillars and chrysalis in the garden and observing them until they hatch. They also have an engineering project where they create “hand pollinators” for milkweed plants.

First Graders grow lettuce and marigolds as part of their salad garden. The students incubate chickens and raise them over the course of the year, partnering with 7th grades and 4H Club members to show chickens at the Jacksonville Agricultural Fair.

Second Grade is in charge of the composting system that provides the soil for all of CTK’s gardens. Students advertise and collect composting scraps each week, weighing the compost and measuring moisture and temperature. This data is used to make adjustments to the compost and students graph their data in math classes.

Third Grade maintains the blueberry garden by weeding, fertilizing, maintaining bedding covering, and harvesting. The students then use their crops to make blueberry muffins to sell and raise funds for the L’Arche Harbor House, a nearby community for people with intellectual and developmental differences. The students even practice their engineering skills by designing a robotic “blueberry picker”!

Fourth Graders serve as energy “consultants,” using solar panels to do experiments to improve energy efficiency. Students have online digital access to the output of both panels at any given time and are able to see the effects of weather, season, and panel angle on output.

Fifth Grade serves as CTK’s 4R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink) experts. Students take a yearly field trip to the local recycling center and take part in the Junior Master Gardener program offered through the University of Florida’s Extension Service, meeting weekly with two master gardeners to plant, harvest, and maintain the school’s gardens.

Sixth Grade is part of the St. Johns Riverkeeper backpack program. The now seven-year-old project began by going to the creek and wetlands on Christ the King Property to learn about long-term data collection and observations. Then students, teachers, and volunteers visit the creek weekly to gather data on tides, water depth, turbidity, pH, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, salinity, and species identification. The students spend time with Riverkeeper educators learning how to utilize the tools to collect data and create presentations of their observations.

A Healthy, Efficient Learning Environment

Now, more than ever, green schools are inspiring students and educators and connecting communities to nature. US Department of Education Secretary Cardona recently spoke about how many of the green schools were uniquely prepared for the global pandemic with outdoor classrooms and social-emotional curriculum. And still, many took the creative initiative to keep kids engaged while learning remotely and with new distancing protocols.

Hear Secretary Cardona announce the 10th annual cohort of Green Ribbon Schools and share what makes a green school successful. The Secretary goes on to describe how the awardees “use sustainability in context to teach important civic values and skills that encourage students to grow into responsible, compassionate, and contributing global citizens…This is even more important as we work to recover from a global health pandemic, where all schools have been forced to confront issues of school air quality, nutrition, and outdoor learning more directly than ever.”

Congratulations to the above awardees and to all the 2021 Green Ribbon Schools, school districts, and post-secondary institutions who have been honored with the US Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools recognition awards this year.

Learn more about PLT’s GreenSchools program and discover how PLT’s GreenSchools Investigations connect with ED-GRS’s three Pillars that the US Department of Education uses to define a green school.