CARING FOR OUR FORESTS -A Legacy of Stewardship

a Global Studies and English unit for 7th grade by Wanda Seeley Stetson
Woodstock Union Middle School, Woodstock, Vermont

This is a Global Studies and English unit that is ideally designed as part of a forest-focused, across the curriculum unit, which would complement work being done in the subject specific areas of math, science, and physical education of a typical middle school in Vermont. This unit could also stand on its own in terms of a place-based unit using forests as its focal point.

The lessons presented for implementation in Global Studies / Social Studies and English classes have a two-pronged emphasis. First, is the issue of grounding students in their awareness of the place in which they live. Through trips into the field, discussing the natural and cultural elements of their environment, nature journaling, and reading the landscape, students will develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for their immediate environment. A central goal is for them to feel an emotional connectedness to their place and to shape a desire to be stewards of that environment. Secondly, the students will acquire the observational skills to read the changes that have taken place in that environment in the past and strengthen their determination to promote practices that will lead to the sustainability of forests for the future.

Our culminating activity will be an orienteering activity, which is a recreational use of the forest.

The essential questions addressed in this unit:
How can we use our forests sustainably?
What do forests mean to us?
How have forests changed over time?
How can we use our forests and ensure their long term health?
What is forest stewardship?

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