Research Highlights - Environmental Literacy

Forest Management Guidelines for Improving and Sustaining Missouri’s Forest Resources

Ensuring the quality of life and well-being of Missouri residents and visitors through productive, healthy, and resilient forests

Missouri Ozark landscape. Photo by Dan Dey, USDA Forest Service

With the publication of “Missouri Forest Management Guidelines,” for the first time Missouri landowners have comprehensive guidelines and best management practices to improve and sustain high-quality forests. Northern Research Station scientists were key contributors to the production of these guidelines, which were published by the Missouri Department of Conservation. Over the past 18 months, these scientists drew upon their more than 80 years of forest research expertise to contribute to the guidelines. Most forest lands in Missouri (84 percent) are privately owned, and currently less than 10 percent of Missouri’s 15.5 million acres of forestlands are managed according to any type of forest plan. “Missouri Forest Management Guidelines” provides (1) an awareness of forest resources and their importance to the quality of life in Missouri, (2) an understanding of forest sustainability and the foundation of good forest management through planning and silviculture, and (3) a synthesis of current science that is embodied in standards, guidelines and best management practices. The ultimate value of forest research is fully realized when it is adopted by owners and managers of forestlands.

Products & Resources:

• Missouri Forest Management Guidelines

PBS Kids Partnership Helps Kids Explore Nature “One Mission at a Time”

A Forest in the City and A City in the Forest, both featuring Jessie Scott, our Urban Connections representative in Boston, show kids just how much nature is in their urban neighborhood. Screen shot by WGBH Boston

Urban forests and the Forest Service are featured in two live-action videos on PBS Kids’ newest multi-media environmental science learning program, “PLUM LANDING.” The program brings a space traveler, PLUM, from the planet Blorb to investigate the incredible ecosystems on Earth. Children, families, and educators can learn about nature around the world and in their backyards through animated and live-action videos, online games and outdoor explorations, and a full curriculum linked to the Next Generation Science Standards for nonformal educators. An associated app, “PLUM’s Photo Hunt,” sends kids on missions to find weird things in nature, signs of animal life, cool trees or flowers, and more. In its first 3 months, the PLUM LANDING website received more than 11 million page views through more than 2 million separate website visits; and more than 110,000 photos and drawings were submitted online. Future outreach efforts will include community service learning opportunities in partner cities across the country to engage families where they live.

Products & Resources:

• Plum Landing on PBS Kids

Woodpeckers Capitalize on an Invasive Forest Pest

Dempsey Middle School science students paint and dissect ash logs to understand woodpecker feeding on emerald ash borer larvae. Photo by Joanne Rebbeck, USDA Forest Service

To understand how woodpeckers respond to emerald ash borer (EAB) and whether there is potential for woodpeckers to control EAB, Forest Service scientists and partners conducted surveys and dissected infested ash trees at Dempsey Middle School’s forest in Delaware, OH. They observed external signs of woodpecker feeding on ash and non-ash species. The seventh- and eighth-grade advanced science classes worked with scientists to mark holes and dissect infested ash trees to determine how many EAB larvae lived in the ash trees and how many were eaten by woodpeckers. Scientists found that woodpeckers specifically targeted ash trees, creating 14 times more feeding holes in ash trees than in other tree species. When feeding on ash trees, woodpeckers specifically targeted trees more highly infested by EAB. Woodpeckers consume a significant proportion of EAB larvae: of the 7,098 EAB larvae that were evident in these dissected trees, 2,624 (37 percent) had been eaten by woodpeckers. In some highly infested trees, up to 85 percent of the EAB larvae were consumed.

Woodland Ecology Research Mentorship in New York City

New York City high school students learned to assess urban forest plots and evaluate tree health through a Forest Service mentorship program

New York City high school students learn how to survey park users as part of a Woodland Ecology Research Mentorship. Photo by Nancy Sonti, USDA Forest Service

Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center in the Bronx, New York, selects academically-achieving teens from low-income households to participate in a 15-month Woodland Ecology Research Mentorship (WERM) program. Funded by the Pinkerton Foundation, this innovative internship provides a stipend to students as they take college-level environmental science coursework, learn urban forestry survey techniques, and develop an individual research project with the help of a local scientist mentor. This past year, a Forest Service scientist became a mentor, teaching workshops about urban tree health, park-user rapid assessment techniques, and statistical analysis. The scientist also helped lead a field trip to a nearby rural forest to discuss long-term ecosystem change and compare urban and rural forest dynamics.

NRS-sponsored Project SMART receives New Hampshire Governor's Commendation

Forest Service scientists help introduce high school students to science careers

Project SMART students, staff, and faculty. Students participate in science-related discussions, lectures, projects, and field trips during the program at UNH. Photo by University of New Hampshire Photographic Services, used with permission.

Forest Service Northern Research Station scientists worked with staffers from Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry at the Durham, NH, field office to collaborate with faculty and scientists at the UNH Durham Campus. They participated in a month-long summer institute called Project SMART (www.smart.unh.edu). This partnership provides a unique opportunity for Forest Service personnel to reach out to high school students needing to make serious decisions about higher education and career choices. Thus students from urban and rural backgrounds, minorities and under-represented populations learned about forestry and the environment as areas of study and future careers. Students explored the White Mountain ecosystems for first-hand observations of the importance and multiple uses of our forests and lakes within. The Forest Service’s “More Kids in the Woods” program also provided partial funding for this program in the past years. On the final day of the program, participants presented a scientific poster at a session, which was attended by more than 200 students, faculty, teachers, parents, and UNH administrators. This year, project SMART and its founding director, Professor Subhash Minocha (UNH) received a commendation from New Hampshire Governor Margaret Wood Hassan.

Products & Resources:

• Project SMART website

Partners in Education

Research partnership with Morris Arboretum reaches nearly 1,000 students in the first year

Students from WB Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences. Photo by Jessica McAtamney, used with permission

A new partnership among the Forest Service’s Northern Research Station, the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, and four Philadelphia-area schools is integrating more environmental science into every-day learning for 950 students and 35 educators, and empowering them to make positive changes, such as taking action to improve local water quality. Researchers and Arboretum staff are working with each school to create tailored, year-long programs addressing curricular needs. The individual programs range from monthly hikes on Arboretum grounds to discuss forestry and watershed issues, to an in-depth inventory and analysis (conducted by students) of the ecological benefits of trees on W.B. Saul High School’s 130-acre campus. This program has an added benefit of exposing youth to a variety of environmental careers through an Outdoor Career Symposium, panel discussions, and hands-on workshops. This partnership was funded through a Forest Service “More Kids in the Woods” grant.

Products & Resources:

• Partners in Education