Branching Out key
To simplify your use of this activity guide, each lesson is labeled with an icon. Each icon represents a resource area that is targeted in the Forest Stewardship Program
Branching Out is your guide for helping youth appreciate and understand our forest and natural surroundings. Easy to follow classroom and outdoor activities link youth to the forest. Soil and water, wildlife, trees, recreation and natural beauty are the topic areas used to develop the concept of stewardship.
Stewardship is the responsibility that each of us has to maintain and improve our natural resources and surroundings. (The Forest Stewardship Program is aimed at enhancing the management of all forest resources on private lands, the stewardship message has implications for all of us.) Our hope is that by enlightening our youth to the fundamentals of resource stewardship, present and future generations will benefit.
This guide has undergone regional comment and testing in middle schools across
North Carolina and was compiled with respect to the Integrated Science
Curriculum and Philosophy for the Science Curriculum developed by the N.C.
Department of Public Instruction. The format for BRANCHING OUT is flexible to
meet local curriculum and subject matter. It's success will require a
commitment to "involve" the student with the natural environment. To
achieve this, take advantage of the resource professionals and forest stewards
in your area that are putting these concepts to work everyday.
The 14 lessons that compose Branching Out are available in pdf. You will need the Acrobat Reader to view these files. Individual activities may be viewed or printed by selecting the lesson below. Or, click here to view and download the entire activity guide (51 pages).
Branching Out Table of Contents