Astoria, Ore.—More than 400 students received hands-on experience and a broad firsthand look at possible career opportunities in natural resources as they rotated around nine outdoor stations at the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Astoria office and demonstration forest Sept. 25–26 at the annual Clatsop County Sixth-Grade Forestry Days.
“Our goal is to provide educational opportunities beyond the classroom,” said Will Lawrence, a reforestation forester with ODF’s Astoria District. “We want students to really connect with the outdoor experience and get them thinking about a possible career working in the outdoors.”
Sixth graders from Warrenton, Seaside, Anchor Christian Academy, Knappa, Astoria, and Encore Academy, as well as several home school groups, rotated for about 15 minutes each at stations that included: tree planting, wildland fire fighting, wood products, fisheries, recreation, tree identification, wildlife rescue, mushrooms and tree measurements.
“We love this once-a-year event because we get to share our passion and our joy discussing everything about nature,” said Dan Stark, Oregon State University Extension Service forester for Clatsop, Tillamook and Lincoln Counties. “Actually, being in the forest here has its perks—they can touch and feel a seedling, take a shovel and plant it in the ground, then talk about all the benefits of trees from producing oxygen to all the everyday products that come from the forest.”
Stark, Lawrence, and Jenny Johnson of Oregon Women In Timber helped lead this all-volunteer event with a planning and execution group that included not only ODF and OSU but Oregon Parks and Recreation, Clatsop County Fisheries, Lewis and Clark National Historic Park, Wildlife Center of the North Coast, Oregon Women in Timber – Talk About Trees, Hampton Lumber, North Coast Watershed Association as well other local volunteers.
Forestry Days has been a tradition for more than 60 years and even though the organizations sponsoring and organizing the event hope to someday recruit motivated and eager employees spurred on by this event, the focus remains on the student’s educational experience.
“This gets our students in a whole different environment outside of the classroom,” said O’Brien Starr-Hollow, a sixth-grade teacher in the Warrenton school district. “It helps them put all the pieces together—whether it’s using a firefighting hose, planting a tree, or learning where their toilet paper comes from it gives them a better understanding and sense of the importance of the forest and this community’s relationship with natural resources.”
Although this event is just two days, the ODF Astoria Demonstration Forest is open year round and more information can be found in the Clatsop State Forest Guide.
Visit the Oregon Department of Forestry’s main website for more information on many forestry related programs from recreation to timber harvesting to wildland firefighting. The partner organizations also have a vast wealth of information on their websites.