School Forest Education Plan:
Outline, Needs Assessment, and Samples

Well monitoring

School forests are incredible education resources. However, often, they are not utilized to their full potential. A variety of reasons exist as to why this is true. One reason is that teachers, administrators, and the community have not determined how the school forest fits into the districts curriculum and how it can be used to enhance student learning.  The school forest education plan is the tool to make these connections.

The school forest education plan outline provides an established, approved format for school forest education plan development. The outline was developed in collaboration with educators and administrators from across the state and was reviewed by outdoor education and resource management professionals.

The document is available in MS Word or Adobe pdf format. The Word format allows you to type directly into the document once you have downloaded it to your computer.

School Forest Education Plan Outline (MS Word)

School Forest Education Plan Outline (PDF)

A needs assessment can provide valuable information on the opportunities and challenges of using the school forest. Use the following example as a guideline to develop your needs assessment to address your specific needs. There are free on-line tools to help you conduct your survey that make it very easy to administer and tabulate the results of the survey. One example is Zoomerang.

School Forest Needs Assessment (MS Word)

School Forest Needs Assessment (PDF)


The following sample education plans and supporting documents are provided as examples to follow while developing your school forest education plan. The education plans follow the format of the approved school forest education plan outline. Keep in mind that each school forest education plan will be unique depending on the characteristics of the school forest, the districts curriculum, the goals and emphasis of the school forest committee, etc.

Sample Education Plan (MS Word)

Sample Education Plan (PDF)

Thanks to Victoria Dahlby at River Crossing Charter School for use of the Portage school forest education plan from which the sample was based.


Berlin School Forests

(all PDF)

Berlin School Forest Needs Assessment Results

Berlin School Forest Rationale

Berlin School Forest Educational Connections

Berlin SF Pine Bluff Map

Berlin SF Locations Map

Berlin SF Site Description and Opportunities

Sustaining the Berlin School Forests


Rahr (Manitowoc) School Forest

Rahr School Forest Education Plan (PDF)


Please contact Jeremy Solin at jsolin@uwsp.edu or 715-346-4907 if you have any questions or need assistance with your education plan.

The Wisconsin Environmental Education Board (WEEB) has set a priority to fund development of school forest education plans. A boiler-plate grant proposal is available. More information can be found on the WEEB website at: www.uwsp.edu/cnr/weeb/GrantProgram/Categories/SchForest.htm.