What Teachers Say
"This has been an excellent course - one of the best I have taken in 41 years of teaching - I shall definitely recommend it to my colleagues!"
~ Workshop participant, Mosquito Hill Nature Center
"This is the first year I have used LEAF. I am currently into our 6th week of my new Forestry Science class. I have used the LEAF book exclusively so far. It's working out well."
~ High School Agricultural Education Instructor
"LEAF has provided a complete guide to forestry education on a local, state, and worldwide level. The lessons are easy to use and provide a variety of learning styles for all students. Thank you for putting together this invaluable set of forestry education materials!"
~ Lori Berget, Tri-County School District
LEAF in Action - Mrs. Simacek's 4th Grade Class
Murray Park Elementary School, Ripon, Wisconsin - LEAF activity - 12/7/05
I took the one credit LEAF course in Berlin, WI with Pat Arndt. I teamed up with a group of 2nd and 3rd grade teachers, so I chose a lesson to use with my class from the 2nd/3rd unit of the LEAF Guide.
I find the resource materials from LEAF extremely easy to use. The resource materials tie in state standards for you. The procedures are well written and easy to implement.
I used the "Is That a Tree" from pages 27-28 (2nd/3rd grade unit) to activate background knowledge. We then did some tree identification matching from pages 29-30. Then, it was time for the real fun. I used the LEAF Guide (pg. 19) to guide the lesson. Students in small groups were changed into parts of a tree. They wore a paper "crown," a paper bag "trunk," and a string belt of "roots." The other members of the small group were needs of the tree, and they rotated around the "tree" while the tree took what it needed.
Students really enjoyed the activity, and it motivated me to continue to use the LEAF Guide for future forestry related lessons.
STUDENT COMMENTS
Josh D. - "It's easy for a tree to die if it doesn't get what it needs."
Savannah - "I learned a tree is kind of like a human...they need food and water - like the stuff we need."
Morgan - "I liked how we weren't just talking about what trees work but we were doing an experiment. It was like a game, and we did an activity for it."
Johannes - "I learned the 2nd time we did when there was another tree, when there is less space, the tree won't get as much as it needs (sunlight, water, and nutrients)."
Lexi - "It's important for trees to get space to get what it needs (air, nutrients, water, and sunlight). Also, I learned trees can get too close to each other."
Taylor S. - "We can learn stuff and have fun too."
Sam E. - "It's important to have nutrients for the tree."
Alex - "I learned if you don't have enough space, the trees could get tangled up and not get what they need."
LEAF in Action - Crandon Middle School
By Tracy Cassidy, Crandon Middle School
I participated in the first LEAF workshop offered at Trees for Tomorrow in 2003. It was a great motivator and I got so many great ideas and resources, I could not resist using the LEAF lessons in my 7th grade life science class. By far the lesson that my students enjoy the most is the Field Enhancement on tree identification. The students are introduced to dichotomous keys and learn to use them very well. We are lucky enough to have ten acres of upland forest attached to our school so I can take students out as often as I like. We have a good variety of trees and the kids love learning the different species and their characteristics. We have also found a lot of good specimens to identify right in our schoolyard.
After the students learn to identify some of the more popular species of trees, we spend some time discussing forest management. The LEAF guide has a wonderful forest management lesson which contains three great activities. Students are encouraged to discover the multiple uses of forests and they learn how professionals manage forests for the most beneficial uses. We are lucky to have a DNR forester in our town who visits with the students and shares his experiences in his work, but the LEAF guide has wonderful career connections for students.
The best thing about the LEAF materials is the huge amount of flexibility in the guide. Teachers can use every lesson or just one. I find that the more lessons I use, the more I want to try. My school just found out this fall that a family donated 40 acres of managed forest to our school district for a school forest. It is three miles from our school building. LEAF lessons are going to be the basis for our staff in-service at the new school forest this spring.
LEAF in Action - South School, Reedsburg
By Dana Westedt, 4th grade teacher at South School in Reedsburg, Wisconsin
I participated in a week-long LEAF program at Trees For Tomorrow during the summer of '04. During the following school year I incorporated many of the LEAF lessons into my Social Studies curriculum. I also received other materials from that class and have utilized activities from them as well. For example, students have enjoyed making tree cookies and learning about how and why the rings formed, then had a chance to "survive" or "die" based on whether they received enough "nutrition" or not. I'm finding the LEAF guide to be invaluable when teaching my 4th grade curriculum. I can modify the activities if I need to, or use them just as written. The materials list for each lesson is wonderful! Overall, this book does everything for you but teach the lesson.
Retired Guidance Counselor and outdoor enthusiast Gary Williams guides a class of 4th graders from South School, on a tour around their school forest. The Hartje Nature Learning Center is 160 acres of forests, ponds, well-marked trails, and an educational building. Students are from Mrs. Westedt's class and have been reading "Forest Tales" by Julia Pferdehirt, and have worked on a variety of activities from the LEAF guide. Here they are working on a list of reasons trees and forests are important to our daily lives.
Students from Mrs. Westedt's class are snowshoeing through the Hartje Nature Learning Center. They worked on various lessons in the LEAF book earlier in the year. Students gained a better understanding of the difficulty people had in traveling around Wisconsin hundreds of years ago, and learned more about survival skills during this day long excursion. Traveling to the school forest in the winter also gave students a concrete way to compare the life cycle of a tree - seeing them earlier in the fall, and now in the winter when they are dormant.