Family Activity: Nature’s Skyscrapers

What’s in a Label?

Students explore the environmental, social, and economic criteria of forest certification and consider possible benefits and limitations of certification for both forests and people.

The Global Climate

Using data collected from Mauna Loa, students graph changes in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the course of several decades and identify possible reasons for those changes.

Renewable or Not

Students model what happens to renewable and nonrenewable resources over time and discover why sustainable use of natural resources is so important.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

By examining trash, students can learn a lot about how and why they throw things away. Students find ways to reduce their community’s waste production and improve its management through participation in a service-learning project.

Plant a Tree

Never underestimate the power of a tree! In addition to giving us an amazing array of paper and wood products, trees provide a host of other benefits—from shading our backyards to reducing air pollution to helping stabilize the global climate.

Our Federal Forests

Our nation’s forests are managed to support different outcomes. Students learn how forests can be managed to meet human and environmental needs and examine national parks to identify challenges that forest managers face meeting different needs.

Nothing Succeeds Like Succession

Succession is a natural pattern of change that takes place over time in a forest or other ecosystem. Students read a story about succession and investigate the connections among plants, animals, and successional stages in a local ecosystem.

Nature’s Skyscrapers

Trees come in many shapes and sizes. Students become familiar with tree structure and scale by using different methods to measure them and by making comparisons. They learn the importance of standardized measurements and proper measuring techniques.

Living with Fire

Students learn about the three elements a fire needs to burn and find out how this “fire triangle” can be used to prevent and manage wildland fires, particularly in the wildland–urban interface.

Life on the Edge

Students model processes that can lead to species becoming rare or endangered. Then, they become advocates for rare or at-risk species of plants or animals and create “public relations campaigns” on behalf of these species.

Invasive Species

Throughout history, people have intentionally and unintentionally moved plant and animal species to new environments. Some of these species have proved beneficial, but others invade natural habitats, causing environmental and sometimes economic harm.

Improve Your Place

Every living thing has a habitat—a place that meets its needs. Human beings’ habitat is the community in which they live.

If You Were the Boss

Students play the role of forest manager for a 400-acre (162-hectare) public forest, exploring the complex factors that influence management decisions about forest lands.

Global Goods

Students gain an appreciation for how many natural resources they depend on in their day-to-day lives. By tracing the resources that go into making one item, students learn how its manufacturing can have an impact on the environment.