More than 800 students from two dozen public, private, Montessori and home-based schools attended the 2024 Douglas County School Forestry Tour. Generations of elementary school students have attended the annual event, which has been held at the Glide Educational Forest for 61 years. The tour is the longest-running forestry and natural resources educational event in Douglas County, according to Alicia Christiansen, an Oregon State University Extension Service forester who organizes the event.
The Douglas County School Forestry Tour started in 1961 and the annual tour introduces 5th graders to forest management, forest products, tree ID, wildlife, fisheries, fire and archaeology. Individual stations are set up to accommodate 15-30 students and feature hands-on learning and highly interactive instruction methods. The students rotate through a loop trail in the forest visiting seven stations. After spending the morning in the forest they take a quick break for lunch and proceed to the forest-themed activities portion of the day. Favorite activities have been the cross-cut saw event and the mini choker race. Tree planting was added in 2022 with each student taking home a seedling.
The Tour is a community event coordinated by OSU Extension Service but made possible with generous donations of time and resources from the Douglas County Public Works and Land Departments, Wolf Creek Job Corps, Oregon Conservation Corps and Oregon Youth Corps (through Phoenix Charter School), Source One Serenity, Roseburg Forest Products, Sierra Pacific Industries, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, Douglas Forest Protection Association, Oregon Society of American Foresters, Oregon Women in Timber, and Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife.
Contact OSU Extension Douglas county to learn how to attend with your students.