SHS Forest Stewardship Project

In this project we revised the Forest Management plan for some forested land at our school. The plan had been neglected for many years, and this forest was in need of some new stewards. With the help of several community partners, we completed this long process. We interviewed members of the community to determine shared goals for use and management. We learned that clean water is a very important forest product and that this is a huge priority in addition to providing a resource for education. Living in our watershed, we are responsible for protecting the quality of the water that supplies 60% of the people in our state. We did an extensive forest inventory to identify forest stands, tree species diversity, size, health, and other threats. We mapped these stands as well as wetlands and property boundaries using GPS and GIS. We went to the town hall to research property transactions to find out more about land use history. We hosted a community night to present our work to the community. Members of the school committee and town council were on hand to hear our presentation. We were very proud of our work, especially since one of the town council members who was present was among the original groups of students who helped to establish this tree farm. He was thrilled that we have taken on this responsibility to be stewards in order to protect our forest and water and provide outdoor classroom spaces to other members of our school. We started to revitalize the trail in our forest and made some educational signs. We started to create two outdoor classroom spaces along the trail. Both of these parts of the project are still in process. This award would help us move forward with this part of the project. To see more about our projects, please visit http://www.nricd.org/landwaterconnection/highschoolprogram.htm