tech nological systems helpsocieties to meet, within lim-its, the needs of a growinghuman population. (3.6)
■ Conservation technologyenables humans to maintainand extend the productivityof vital resources. (3.7)
■ Natural beauty, as experi-enced in forests and otherhabitats, enhances the qual-ity of human life by provid-ing artistic and spiritualinspiration, as well as recre-ational and intellectualopportunities. (1.10)
SkillsIdentifying Main Ideas,Analyzing, Solving Problems
Spreadsheet/Database Software
MaterialsCopies of student pages; a yellow marker; chart paper;colored markers; calculators(optional); masking tape;transparencies and overheadpro jector (optional)
Time ConsiderationsPreparation: 60 minutesActivity: Two to three 50-minute periods
Related ActivitiesWater Wonders, A Forest ofMany Uses, Loving It Too Much,Forest Consequences, Forest forthe Trees
Public and private forests cover nearly one-third of our nation’s land. More than justtrees, forests are made up of a wide variety ofspecies that interact to create a thrivingecosystem. They provide habitats for manyspecies of plants and animals as well as vitalresources for people. People use forests inmany ways such as harvest ing timber,camping, hiking, hunting, and fishing.Forests also provide clean water by anchor-ing the soil and preventing soil erosion.
The Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Actof 1960 requires that nation al forests bemanaged “in a manner to provide themaximum benefit for the general pub-lic.” Multiple use manage ment of publiclands means forest managers must con-sider values for fish and wildlife, soil,water, timber, and recreation. Privateforests are often managed forthose same values. (For moreabout multiple use man -agement, see the backgroundfor Activity 32, “A Forest ofMany Uses.”
In our society, manypublic policyand leg-
islative decisions are made in terms ofcosts, benefits, and environ mentalimpacts. Forest managers must considerthe economic effects of their decisionsabout forest lands. But they must alsoconsider the forest’s intangi ble elementssuch as recreation, water, soil, andwildlife values, even though those itemsare harder to evaluate. One way to con-sider the value of a forest for recreationaluse would be to compare costs and bene-fits, for exam ple, the cost of developing acamp ground versus the income fromfees charged. Another way is to calculatethe number and type of visitors a spe cificattraction or activity will bring to the for-est in a year.
One way to determine the value ofwildlife is to measure its contribution tothe forest’s economic value. Calculate thisvalue by finding out the species of
wildlife that live in the forestand if those animals
consist of game(hunted) species likedeer, turkey, orquail. Then deter-
mine the incomegenerated from
hunters through licenses,guns, equipment,
lodging, and travel.
BACKGROUNDBACKGROUND
Activity
50400-Acre WoodIn this activity, students will play the role of managers of a 400-acre (162 hectare) piece of public forest. Through this role, students will begin to understand the complexconsiderations that influence management deci sions about forest lands.
■ Students will experience the analysis and deci -sion-making involved in manag ing forest land.
■ Students will understand that any land-usedecision has a number of consequences forpeople, wildlife, and plants.
■ Have student teams present their plan for 400-Acre Woods to a Community Council (made upof students). Give each team five minutes toexplain why their plan should be accepted bythe council. After all teams have presented theirplans, give the council members time to choosethe plan they believe is best. Use team presen-tations to assess how well stu dents understandthe pros and cons of their proposals.
Copyright 2013, American Forest Foundation. The reprinting and distribution of this activity from Project Learning Tree's "PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide" is intended for the one-time use by USEE. Educators in Utah can receive the complete guide by attending a PLT workshop. Contact Andree' Walker Bravo, UT PLT State Coordinator, at 801-328-1549 or [email protected] for more information.
Wildlife’s eco nomic value mightinclude other uses that generateincome such as wildlife photographyand bird watching.
Another way to determine the impor-tance of wildlife is to realize that it hasintrinsic value, regardless of its eco-nomic value. With this approach, man-agers view the forest as a complexecosystem in which every part of thesystem is important to every otherpart. If managers maintain each com -ponent of the ecosystem, the result willbe healthy and assorted wildlife andplant communities, or biodiversity. Tofigure out how a specific action or non-action might impact biodiversity, forestmanagers look at the impact of anaction on several wildlife species withdifferent habitat needs.
One impact of human developmentcan be fragmentation. Fragmentationis the process of dividing large, contin-uous ecosystems and habitats intosmaller, isolated parcels. Whenhumans develop a piece of land forhomes, roads, businesses, agriculture,parking lots, and other developments,they change the biological community.As the size of a habitat becomes small-er and smaller, more and more animaland plant species are affected.Sometimes, the decline of a certainspecies can serve as an early indicatorthat a whole com munity or ecosystemis changing.
Make copies of the student pages.Using a light -colored marker, draw a20" x 20" (50.8 cm x 50.8 cm) grid mapof 400-Acre Wood on a piece of chartpaper for each team of four or five stu-dents. (Teams can also make theirown.) The grid should have 400 1" x 1"(2.5 cm x 2.5 cm) squares, each repre-senting 1 acre (0.4047 hectare). Onanother piece of chart paper, make anidentical, but larger, grid to use ingroup discussion. If you have an over -head projector, you may want to pre-pare a transparency of the grid.
1. Introduce the activity by explainingthat students will look at several com -plex issues that face forest managers.Help students brainstorm a list of activ-ities that take place on forest land. Listtheir ideas on the board. Include useslike hiking, fish ing, hunting, reading,taking pictures, camping, rock climbing,skiing, snow mobiling, logging, grazing,or mining. Ask the class to look at thelist and decide if any activities wouldconflict with each other if done on thesame piece of land.
2. Discuss these questions:■ Which activities would cost the most
to provide on forest land?■ Which would bring the most visitors?■ Which would have the greatest
impact on the forest ecosystem? Onthe wildlife there? Would this effectbe permanent or temporary?
■ Which would cause fragmentation?■ Which would provide for society’s
most critical needs?
3. Have students read the “If You Werethe Boss” student pages. Divide thegroup into teams of four or five, andexplain that each team will decide the
best use (or uses) of 400-Acre Wood,which has been donated to the com-munity. Each team will develop a landman agement plan that will serve thebest interests of the entire ecosystem.Make sure students understand thattheir team can use the entire 400acres (162 ha) for one use, or can divideit up for multiple uses. For example,they may devote 200 acres (81 ha) towilderness and hiking, 80 acres (32 ha)to a camp ground, and 120 acres (49ha) for harvesting timber or hunting.
4. Before students begin, ask thesequestions:■ Which forest uses in “If You Were the
Boss” are compatible with otheruses? (for example, building a camp-ground and hiking trail next to eachother)
■ Which might be incompatible witheach other? (hunting near a camp-ground)
■ What could you learn by figuringout the costs, revenues, trees,wildlife populations, and number ofvisitors for each management plan?(how the plan affects different forestvalues)
■ Are owls, wood rats, and salaman -ders the only wildlife in the forest?(no) What could you learn about the
Copyright 2013, American Forest Foundation. The reprinting and distribution of this activity from Project Learning Tree's "PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide" is intended for the one-time use by USEE. Educators in Utah can receive the complete guide by attending a PLT workshop. Contact Andree' Walker Bravo, UT PLT State Coordinator, at 801-328-1549 or [email protected] for more information.
Bryan, Nichol. Los Alamos Wildfires. GarethStevens. 2003. Describes the eventssurrounding the wildfire that raged in NewMexico in 2000, and the resulting debateover the policy of prescribed burning, orpurposely setting fires as a means of forestmanagement. Grades 4+. ISBN: 0836855078.
Camp, William G. and Thomas B. Daugherty.Managing Our Natural Resources. DelmarLearning. 1995. Examines the nature, history,and management of natural resources
ranging from soil and water to forests,wildlife, and marine resources. Includessuggested activities and discussion ofoccupations in the field. Grades 6+. ISBN: 0827367163.
Foster, David R. and John F. O’Keefe. NewEngland Forests Through Time: Insights fromthe Harvard Forest Dioramas. HarvardUniversity Press. 2000. The historical andenvironmental lessons of New England’slandscape are told through the world-renowned dioramas in Harvard's FisherMuseum. This first book based on thedioramas conveys the phenomenal history
of the land, the beauty of the models, andnew insights into nature. Grades 6+. ISBN:0674003446.
Heinrich, Bernd. The Trees in My Forest.HarperCollins Publishers. 1997. The authortakes the readers on an eye-opening journeythrough the hidden life of a three hundredacre forest. Each of the 24 essays explores adifferent aspect of the relationships amongplants, animals, and people of the forest.Grades 7+. ISBN: 0060174463.
forest ecosystem by analyzing thepopulations of these three species?(By looking at three ani mals withdifferent habitat require ments, youget an idea of the gener al health ofthe forest ecosystem.)
5. Give each team a map (grid) of the400-Acre Wood. Also give each team acopy of the “What’s the Score?” studentpages. Each team should discuss variousstrategies for managing the forest. Whenthe team arrives at a consensus on howthe land should be managed, directmembers to use “What’s the Score?” for acost and benefit analysis of their plan.They should discuss what impact theirplan would have in terms of visitors,wildlife, trees, and cost and revenue.
See the PLT website, www.plt.org,for information about obtaining a
spreadsheet or database to use in con-junction with the “What’s the Score?”student pages.
6. When the teams have completedtheir management plans, they shoulduse crayons or colored markers to illus -trate their plans on the grids. Remindthem to include a key showing whatdifferent colors and symbols mean.
7. Ask teams to present their plans tothe entire group, making clear howthey decided on their plans. Havethem also report the findings of their“What’s the Score?” student pages.Post the maps around the room.
8. Use the large grid map to lead agroup discussion of different plans.Ask these questions:■ Which plan enables the most peo ple
to enjoy the forest? What is themonetary cost in attracting the mostvisitors? Are there any other costsbesides money?
■ Which plan does the most to pre -serve the forest in its original state?What are the costs of this plan?
■ Which plan has the most impact onwildlife and fragmentation? Whyshould we care if one animal speciesleaves the forest?
■ Which plan seems to provide thebest balance of money,trees, wildlife, and visitors?
■ How do you think yourplan should be paid for? Ifyour plan made a profit,what should happenwith the money?
■ Which do you think ismost impor tant: hav-ing the most trees,the most wildlife, orthe most visitors?What makes youthink so?
■ Which do you thinkis most important—an activity’s cost or revenue,or the activity’s effects on trees,wildlife, and visitors? Give anexample.
■ Which items are on-going costs orrevenues? Which are one-time costsor revenues?
■ What will be the long-term effectsof each plan? How will costs or rev-enue change in the next year? Willthe numbers of trees, wildlife, or vis-itors change?
Enrichment■ Repeat the activity and have each
team extend its management planinto the next year, and calculate theeffect on money, trees, wildlife, andvisitors for the second year.
■ Contact the local Forest Serviceoffice or forestry agency, and invite aforest manager to talk to your class
about how his or her organiza-tion makes land-use decisions.
Encourage students to ask questionsbased on what they learned in the
activity. For example, how doforest managers weigh the
effects of an action on trees,people, and animals in aforested area?
Copyright 2013, American Forest Foundation. The reprinting and distribution of this activity from Project Learning Tree's "PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide" is intended for the one-time use by USEE. Educators in Utah can receive the complete guide by attending a PLT workshop. Contact Andree' Walker Bravo, UT PLT State Coordinator, at 801-328-1549 or [email protected] for more information.
A magnificent forest, 400-Acre Wood, has just beendonated to your community. You and your team havethe job of deciding what to do with this forest.
As you might have guessed, 400-Acre Wood is 400acres (162 hectares) in size. An acre is an area of landequal to a square that is 208.7 feet on each side, and400 acres is a little less than 1 square mile. (A hectare[ha] is 10,000 square meters and is equal to about 2.47acres. To convert acres to hectares, multiply by 0.4047).
400-Acre Wood is made up of pine forest, with about 150mature pine trees per acre. In addition, it contains lots ofwildlife such as owls, deer, bear, woodpeckers, turkey,quails, wood rats, fish, and woodland salamanders.
Wildlife biologists use something called managementindicator species (MIS) to evaluate the impact of peo-ple’s actions on the environment. For 400-Acre Wood,the indicator species are barred owls, wood rats, andwoodland salamanders. Wildlife biologists estimatethat 400-Acre Wood currently has two barred owls per100 acres (40 ha) of forest, and one wood rat and 25woodland salamanders per acre (0.40 ha). That meansa total of 8 barred owls, 400 wood rats, and 10,000salamanders currently live in 400-Acre Wood.
Because the forest currently has no roads or trails, fewpeople use or visit it.
You and your team will make a map of 400-Acre Woodand develop a management plan for it. You maydecide to do one thing with the entire forest. Or youmay want to divide the forest and do different thingsin different areas. You goal is to find what you think isthe best balance between visitor enjoyment, trees,wildlife, and money.
Below are the different forest uses you can include inyour plan. The “What’s the Score?” student page willhelp you evaluate your plan’s total effect on visitors,trees, wildlife, and money.
Wilderness PreserveThe purpose of a wilderness preserve is to allowwildlife and plants to exist without humans interfer-ing. Typically a wilderness preserve has no roads, grad-ed trails, or campsites. Wilderness preserve areas willhave the following effects.
Visitors: About 5 people per acre per year will visit thepreserve.Trees: The number of trees per acre will remain thesame.Wildlife: The numbers of owls, wood rats, and salaman-ders per acre will remain the same. Money: It will cost money to manage the preserve, andeach visitor will pay an entrance fee.
TrailsGraded trails allow different types of visitors to enjoy aforest area, including walkers, cyclists, families withstrollers, and wheelchair users. Trails areas will havethe following effects.Visitors: About 25 visitors per acre per year will use the trails.Trees: Some trees must be cut to build a trail.Wildlife: The increase in visitors will disturb thewildlife. Owls will leave areas with trails (they sleepduring the day when people are about), and trails aredangerous for woodland salamanders as they migrateto pools of water during breeding season. There will beno affect on the wood rat population. Money: It costs money to build and maintain trails.Trees removed to make the trail can be sold. Each visi-tor will pay an entrance fee.
If You Were the Boss (continued)CampgroundA campground allows visitors toenjoy a forest area overnight orover the weekend. It typicallyhas a number of campsites, pluspicnic tables, fire pits, parkingspaces, and bathrooms. A camp-ground also needs to have aroad winding through it. Acampground has about 4 sitesper acre. Campground areas willhave the following effects.Visitors: About 12.5 campers persite per year will come to thecampground, or 50 campers peracre per year.Trees: Trees need to be removedto build the road and the camp-sites. Wildlife: A campground andcampers will cause all threeindicator species—owls, woodrats, and salamanders—to disappear from the area. Money: It costs money to build and maintain the road,to clear and level the campsites, and to build andmaintain the restrooms. It also costs money to managethe campground. Trees removed for the road andcampsites can be sold. Campers pay a camping fee.
Hunting Some forest areas are managed to encourage gameanimals (deer, turkey, and quail) for hunters. Theseareas require a road for visitors. Hunting areas willhave the following effects.Visitors: About 1 hunter per acre per year will visit. Trees: Trees will need to be removed to build the road.Wildlife: With regulations to keep game populationsconstant, there should be no effect on the three indica-tor species—owls, wood rats, and salamanders.Money: It will cost money to build and maintain theroad. It will also cost money for management. Treesremoved for the road can be sold. Hunters will pay ahunting fee.
FishingTo encourage fish for anglers, a lake can be created bydamming the forest stream. Fishing areas will have thefollowing effects.Visitors: About 2 anglers per acre per year will visit.
Trees: Trees will need to be removed to create the lake.Wildlife: Creating the lake will cause all three indicatorspecies—owls, wood rats, and salamanders—to disap-pear from the fishing area.Money: It will cost money to build the dam to createthe lake. It will also cost money for management. Treesremoved for the lake can be sold. Anglers will pay afishing fee.
Timber HarvestSome forest areas are set aside for timber harvesting,which means cutting trees to sell the logs. Using a sus-tainable yield approach, only a portion of the trees areremoved at any given time. This minimizes the effecton wildlife, while producing as many logs as possibleover the long-term. For pine trees, which take 35 yearsto reach maturity, one-fifth of the trees are cut every 7years. Timber harvest areas will have the followingeffects.Visitors: About 5 people per acre per year will visit.Trees: Trees will be removed to build the road, plusone-fifth of remaining mature trees will be removed.Wildlife: The timber harvest will have a minimalimpact on the three indicator species.Money: It will cost money to build and maintain theroad and for management. The harvested trees can besold. Visitors will pay a fee.
Step 2. Calculate how many visitors per year this plan will attract to your community.
(_____ acres Wilderness x 5 visitors/acre) + (_____ acres Trails x 25 visitors/acre) + (_____ acres Campground x 50campers/acre) + (_____ acres Hunting x 1 hunters/acre) + (_____ acres Fishing x 2 anglers/acre) + (_____ acresTimber Harvest x 5 visitors/acre) = _____ Total Visitors per Year
Step 3.Calculate how this plan will affect the wildlife management indicator species. Compare the totals you get to theoriginal population of 8 owls, 400 wood rats, and 10,000 salamanders.
Owls: (_____ acres Wilderness) + (_____ acres Hunting) + (_____ acres Timber Harvest) = _____acres that willsupport owls x 0.02 owls/acre = _____ Total Owls (Note: Round down to the nearest whole owl.)
Wood Rats: (_____ acres Wilderness) + (_____ acres Trails) + (_____ acres Hunting) + (_____ acres Timber Harvest) =_____ acres that will support wood rats x 1 wood rat/acre = _____ Total Wood Rats
Step 4. Calculate how many miles of trail or road are needed for your plan.
(_____ acres Trails) ÷ 6 acres/mile = ______ Total Miles of Trail(_____ acres Campground x 250 ft/acre) ÷ 5,280 ft/mile = _____ miles of road for Campground(_____ acres Hunting x 100 ft/acre) ÷ 5280 ft/mile = _____ miles of road for Hunting(_____ acres Timber Harvest x 100ft/acre) ÷ 5280 ft/mile = ______ miles of road for Timber Harvest
Step 5.Calculate how many mature trees remain based on your plan.
(_____ miles of Trail x 0.36 acres/mile) x 150 trees/acre = __________ (_____ miles Campground road x 1.45 acres/mile) x 150 trees/acre = __________ (_____ miles Hunting road x 1.45 acres/mile) x 150 trees/acre = __________ (_____ acres of Fishing) x 150 trees/acre = __________ (_____ miles Timber Harvest road x 1.45 acres/mile) x 150 trees/acre = __________ (_____ acres Timber Harvest x 1/35 harvested) x 150 trees/acre = __________ Total trees removed __________
60,000 mature trees in 400-Acre Wood – trees removed = trees remaining __________
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