Teachers and school administrators now can access Oregon Forest Resources Institute’s The Oregon Forest Literacy Program, a K-12 Conceptual Guide to Teaching and Learning about Oregon Forests. The new program provides a framework for educating Oregon’s K-12 students about forests.
Developed by a diverse and collaborative statewide group, the effort resulted in a plan with three components: a conceptual framework; a K-12 scope and sequence; and connections to service-learning projects developed by teachers.
The conceptual framework identifies important forest concepts, the scope and sequence is a blueprint for when to teach the concepts, and the service-learning projects provide an instructional strategy for how to teach the concepts. The Oregon Forest Literacy Program, in essence, provides guidance on the “what,” “when” and “how” of forestry education.
The guide was made possible in part through a “Learn and Serve for Sustainability” grant from the Oregon Department of Education, jointly awarded to the Tillamook School District and OFRI. The Oregon Forest Literacy Program is available at Oregonforests.org, along with tools that correlate the forest-literacy concepts to Oregon’s science and social science standards, as well as to OFRI’s other educational materials.
Norie Dimeo-Ediger
Director of K-12 Education Programdimeo-ediger@ofri.org