Pat Straughan, environmental educator for 20 years, concerned parent of two school age children and classroom volunteer, is also the logistics coordinator for A Forest For Every Classroom at Shelburne Farms. Below is her reflection about the work she has been involved with for the past five years.

A breeze stirs the forest canopy. Distant laughter grows louder, and an exuberant voice assures us that “It’s not a question of why the birch has white bark, but why not some other color! Natural selection in trees species does not work for positive traits, but against negative ones. That explains the incredible diversity of characteristics in the trees around us.” John Shane, Chair of the Forestry Department at the University of Vermont, is sharing one of his “nuggets”—the fundamental truths that inform his passionate teaching about forest ecology. He is trying to give us a new frame of reference as he answers an inquiry about the useful properties of white bark. Perhaps there are none!
It’s food for thought….

Now we hear the distant mechanical whine of a laboring skidder and snow crunching underfoot. Fresh wood and crushed needles scent the air as we follow a trail of downed branches, laid out in a challenging hiking path designed to protect the forest floor from the ravages of heavily chained wheels and dragged logs. The skidder idles and is drowned out by the gnarling scream of a chainsaw. The air is icy cold. A distinctly Vermont voice explains, “Well, I was a dairy farmer for my whole life, and it’s a hard life, so I decided to make a change, take a break. I became a logger.” The group laughs with disbelief. We are freezing, and while it was exhilarating to see the tree fall, it also looked dangerous and physically demanding to hook the tree up to the skidder and haul it out over rugged terrain in that wide-open unheated cab. The painful slowness of the process begs the question, “How can the value of that log possible pay for this certifiably sustainable operation?” Peter Chase explains why he loves his work, out here in the iron hard, winter-bound forest: isolated, deafening, dangerous work it is, which yet clearly brings satisfaction and peace to this small, bearded man. The group peppers him with questions about how he sustains his economic livelihood while so carefully selecting each individual tree for its slow journey to the mill, and what it takes to keep that ancient skidder alive.

The folks you just met in the woods were not students on a field trip. They were teachers who were being challenged to think big and outside the box; classroom teachers out in the woods with a caliber of forest-based professionals and academicians they don’t usually have easy access to. They were classroom teachers of all grades being taught by resource experts passionate about their topics. They were re-experiencing the childhood joys of outdoor play and discovery, and in the process being equipped with effective and lively teaching strategies for involving students in their local landscape and community.

A squabble of slightly frustrated voices raises questions. There’s an expectant pause for the response. “The five column chart is not mandatory, it’s highly recommended as an organizing tool for your unit. It shows intentional alignment of your criteria, learning activities, product and performances and the assessment strategies you will use.” Murmurs of agreement accompany more straining against the format. Amy Demarest forges ahead with the conviction of a former classroom teacher as she tries to demystify the essential qualities of an exemplary standards based unit to the group before her.

There are many striking memories from the past three years of the work we call A Forest For Every Classroom or FFEC, a year-long workshop series accompanied by a committed, on-going alumni relationship. We’ve shared many conversations with participants and evaluation specialists that fuel our conviction that this collaborative and extensive form of professional development has indeed changed teacher practice in meaningful, sometimes radical, and frequently wonderful ways. There are numerous testimonials to the power of building long-term relationships with a network of wise, creative educators who have been seeking financial assistance, emotional support, content-rich training and credible methods through which to teach outside the box, outside the classroom, positively “over the river and through the woods.” That’s FFEC for you—an unappealing acronym for a highly appealing professional development program at the heart of my work.

FFEC is a commitment by organizing partners and participating teachers alike to bring children back to an outdoor classroom, to the wonder-full, vibrant, real-world learning center that is their own community. The landscape and people surrounding every school comprise a wealth of resources steeped in possibility for teaching through science, literacy, math or history. A Forest For Every Classroom is a program that opens the way to a lot of fun, stronger ties to your past, a richer involvement for local people and a more creative, dynamic and healthier learning environment for every classroom.

A teacher slowly reaches her hand inside the dark, narrow mouth of the cannon and yips with satisfaction as she pulls out a small metal box. “Oooh….” We crowd in with delight. Treasure! After explaining the origins, purpose and structure of a Quest and letting us all try our hand at devising one or two stanzas of enticing rhyming clues, Steve Glazer, Valley Quest coordinator, had let us loose in small groups around the village to experience firsthand the culminating activity for a place-based teaching unit. The “Quest”—a student-created “treasure hunt” with movement and content clues – led us through the village and enlightened us about historical and cultural landmarks along the way. We figured out its cryptic clues, learned something new about the village, and now have the stamp in our books to prove it—a good day’s work. We are completely satisfied….

At a FFEC partner meeting there are as many perspectives and organizational needs as there are charming vignettes of teacher experiences in the program. When a National Park Service Superintendent plans a program with a US Forest Service Public Affairs Officer, groundbreaking things can happen. When you combine often conflicted federal agencies in a committed and mutually appreciative relationship with both local and national nonprofit organizations rich in professional development experience (Shelburne Farms and the National Wildlife Federation) the possibilities are endless. Add in the Northern Forest Center and the Conservation Study Institute of the national park service, and you are looking at a power house of locally-based people with a very long reach, ambitious goals and the potential for attracting considerable resources. You afford the project a resource base and dissemination range that appeals to funders, ensures a wide audience, and models the sort of inter-agency cooperation and interdependence of disparate groups that we’d like our children to experience and value as they grow into decision-making citizens of the future.

The FFEC partnership is entering its fifth year of collaboration. We are about to embark on a third round of workshops for new participants, another year of alumni workshops and networking, and a further in-depth evaluation of the effectiveness of our work in a ground-breaking four-program evaluation collaboration. As we collaborate on the second Promise of Place conference, or offer more two-day modules on the Principles and Best Practices of Place-Based Education, our central mission remains the same: To provide outstanding local teachers with exceptional training, while as a partnership we attempt to export our model. Other national parks and forests, or other National Wildlife Federation field offices can partner with local non-profit organizations to provide training and resources that empower teachers to bring school children out into public lands. Students learn about, build a relationship with, and ultimately work to protect their community’s resources. In Vermont the model naturally became A Forest For Every Classroom. In Arizona, why not a desert for every classroom? In Montana, a river; in California, a beach!

My dad was a forester and my mom a teacher. I like to quip that I am genetically engineered to coordinate this program. But more than that, FFEC supports an idea of learning that fits with everything I believe was good for me as a child, and everything I wish my own children would experience in their schooling. I am in awe of the teachers who embrace this learning in the face of current educational trends, who fight hard to continue to take kids outside, building their relationship with their place and encouraging them to be good citizens in their town or village. FFEC is also the most complex and potentially far-reaching partnership that I have worked in. It challenges each organization’s allocation of time and resources. It demands that we look for common cause amongst all the players, utilizing the varied strengths and resources we can bring to the project, and respecting limitations and differences. Is this not a microcosm of democracy?

Our greatest success in FFEC are the teachers who say “I’ve changed!” “This course has restored my passion for teaching”, “I’m a resource to others in my school”. And those who return for every alumni event, always wanting to deepen their understanding of the forest ecosystem and its management, to feel the benefits of belonging to a group of like-minded peers.

As part of the program implementation team of FFEC, my role is to make wise content choices about how we use our eleven precious days of workshop time. The selection of presenters reflects our need to understand the basic ecology of the forest, as well as seasonal changes in both the natural dynamic and in forest management. We also lead our participants through the process of developing stronger community relationships, writing a useful and well-constructed teaching unit, and incorporating service-learning into their students’ experience.

In the bigger picture, the FFEC partners ponder both funding and staffing restrictions and the national opportunities for this work. All ten of us around the table stay focused, whether it’s on revamping the training of federal interpreters, influencing educational reform, or getting more kids out in the woods. The partnership is as wonderful, complex and evolving as the forest outside the window. Succession is certainly at play as new off-shoots and possibilities complicate and expand the management of this project for a long-term sustainable yield—Green-Certified, of course!

Rob Hanson’s Pomfret students came to demonstrate one approach to knowing place (the use of “Power Spots”) and one way to provide a culminating event to a learning process (the production of a Speak Chorus—a spoken selection of their reflective writing, with individual voices meshed into a community of observations and feelings). Rob was a first year FFEC participant who found the encouragement in this program to pursue what he really wanted to give to his students. He was able to provide them with an intimate knowledge of a place, a variety of ways in which to study it, and finally, the challenging and powerful process of selecting and editing, memorization and practice involved in creating a Speak Chorus to share their discoveries with their community. The energy and community in that poem had its roots in quiet time spent alone in the woods: Rob’s gift to them, returned in kind to us.


For More Information on the Forest for Every Classroom, contact Pat Straughan at: pstraughan@ShelburneFarms.org