Photo: Sydney Johnson
Photo: Sydney JohnsonWhile some California schools shut their doors in October during a blackout intended to prevent wildfires, lessons continued outdoors for a group of students tucked away high in the Santa Cruz mountains.
There, high school students from Sacramento to Los Angeles gathered at Forestry Challenge, a statewide program and competition that aims to train students in technical forest skills and management.
California has adopted new academic standards in math and science to help grow the number of students prepared for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. Similar to other STEM fields, employers in California’s forestry and natural resources industries are in need of a larger and more diverse pool of qualified applicants.
The need for sustainable forest management is ever-present as fires rage across California this fall. Several volunteer instructors at the program who work for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection stressed the need for more qualified applicants to help protect California’s forests.
“Forestry is a little bit invisible to most folks. Most people think of park rangers and that’s a very limited way of looking at land management,” said Erin Kelly, an associate professor of forest economics and administration at Humboldt State University. Foresters have a broad range of responsibilities from managing tree growth to providing technical expertise for improving the health and economic viability of forests.
A 2018 survey by Shasta College found that 45 percent of natural resource businesses in Northern California — including forestry, fuel production and environmental consulting — are experiencing or anticipate a workforce shortage. State government employers reported the most difficulty finding qualified forestry applicants in the last five years, according to a 2019 study by Kelly and Greg Brown, head of the Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences Department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Forestry Challenge is trying to change that by teaching students new skills and career pathways.
Founded in 2003 by Diane Dealey Neill, Forestry Challenge takes place in five counties around the state: Shasta, El Dorado, Santa Cruz, San Bernardino and Tuolumne. At each site, participants spend four days learning from professional foresters how to collect forest data, then analyze and present their findings around a given task to a panel of judges at the end of the program.
The group with the most impressive presentation then competes for a state championship in April 2020 in Pinecrest, near Yosemite, along with the winning teams from the other locations.
Each location has a different theme. In 2018, one of the most destructive years for forest fires in California history, students in Santa Cruz honed in on fire safety and how prescribed burns can help reduce the impact of fire later on. This year, 12 schools participated in the Santa Cruz competition, where 84 students were tasked with evaluating a piece of land and making recommendations for a timber management plan, taking into account tree health and density, future harvesting, economic cost and biological impact.
Photo: Sydney Johnson
Math teacher Blake Schmidt shows students how to count the age of a tree using an extracted sample from a tree trunk.
Between warm breakfasts and night hikes, students at the Santa Cruz competition broke out into groups for specific skills training they would be tested on later in the week. Some learned how to read a compass and practiced pacing, a skill foresters use to measure distance with steps rather than a tape measure. Others twisted increment bores into tree trunks to extract samples that determine age and health.
“There is no textbook to flip to the back and no right answer,” said Neill, adding that her favorite part of the event is the “Ask a Forester” session where students can get feedback on their proposals from professionals. “Scores are based on how you present the information and how you back it up based on your data.”
Many students return year after year to the program, like Salvatore Deguara, a senior at San Lorenzo Valley High School in Santa Cruz County who is taking AP Environmental Science this year. “It’s so interesting to see the application of what we learn in class and solve real-world problems, instead of just a word problem,” he said before starting a lesson on using a dichotomous key to identify tree species.
Deguara organized the trip for his school and said he wants to study environmental sciences next year in college. “Kids here are beginning to make decisions about what they want to do for college or work and there’s this big push to go into tech,” he said. “But many don’t know you can actually go work outside.”
That was the case for Victoria Thek, a forestry major at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo who is one of nearly 150 volunteers that help run the competition.
“I didn’t know I wanted to do forestry until my second year in college,” Thek said. “No one knows about this field until someone tells them.” But teachers and outdoor learning programs can expose students to forestry careers well before they enter college, she added.
Since the 1980s, enrollment in forestry programs has declined at many colleges around the country, according to a study published by the Society of American Foresters. Kelly says that many California foresters are now nearing retirement, but not enough young foresters are prepared to step in.
Blake Schmidt, a math teacher at Ross Middle School in Marin County, decided to take his students to Forestry Challenge after participating in a free statewide program for California teachers called the Forestry Institute for Teachers.
Photo: Sydney Johnson
Kylie Adams and Dalia Gonzalez, two seniors at Monache High School near Bakersfield, practice using a compass.
During the week-long residential program, teachers learn about California’s forest ecosystems, how people use natural resources, and work with curriculum experts to design lessons aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards, new academic standards that emphasize hands-on projects and integrate several scientific disciplines.
Schmidt sees connections between forestry and his math lessons and other subjects, too. Students at Forestry Challenge practice trigonometry when using a clinometer, which calculates tree height by measuring the angle between the user, who stands at a distance, and the top of the tree. Data analysis and biology come together when students calculate the tree density of a given plot of land. And California history and geography are woven into exercises on reading maps and how government policies and timber harvests impact the region’s ecology.
“Forestry is a STEM discipline, but it’s really multidisciplinary,” Kelly said. “It includes all of the components of STEM and a lot of knowledge of policy and economics and hopefully building relationships with the public and landowners.”
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Felix Lopez 3 years ago3 years ago
Sydney, thank you for the article. There are indeed great careers in the natural resources and forestry fields.I studied forestry at Reedley College, later obtained a BA in Biological Science at Fresno State with an emphasis in natural resources. I worked for the US Forest Service and later the US Bureau of Reclamation. One piece of advice is to understand there is a business and aspect to many endeavors. Therefore.I … Read More
Sydney, thank you for the article. There are indeed great careers in the natural resources and forestry fields.I studied forestry at Reedley College, later obtained a BA in Biological Science at Fresno State with an emphasis in natural resources. I worked for the US Forest Service and later the US Bureau of Reclamation.
One piece of advice is to understand there is a business and aspect to many endeavors. Therefore.I obtained an MBA and Certificate in Urban & Regional Planning. I later discovered (and I hate to say this) but my education was at second tier universities which is another aspect of careers that I never anticipated. However, with sincere and genuine effort there is great opportunity.
Zeev Wurman 4 years ago4 years ago
I wonder whether the writer could explain why she argues that "Similar to other STEM fields, employers in California’s forestry and natural resources industries are in need of a larger and more diverse pool of qualified applicants." What, precisely, has human "diversity" to do with forestry? Or, perhaps, we need more "diverse" journalists who do't have one-track diversity-is-everywhere brains? Read More
I wonder whether the writer could explain why she argues that “Similar to other STEM fields, employers in California’s forestry and natural resources industries are in need of a larger and more diverse pool of qualified applicants.”
What, precisely, has human “diversity” to do with forestry? Or, perhaps, we need more “diverse” journalists who do’t have one-track diversity-is-everywhere brains?
Replies
Arlo Petruski 4 years ago4 years ago
I’m sorry you haven’t learned about or experienced the value diversity brings to productivity. Perhaps this article will help (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167208328062). Given the current condition of our forests, we most certainly need more productive science and policy.
Zeev Wurman 4 years ago4 years ago
Arlo Petruski, I am sorry that you mislead, whether intentionally or not, about the value of so-called diversity and its impact on productivity. In common modern parlance "diversity" is defined by color of skin, sex or gender, and – rather more rarely nowadays – economic status. That is precisely the sense the author of this piece uses it, when she calls for more diversity "similar to other STEM fields." In contrast, modern *mainstream* parlance *never* implies diversity … Read More
Arlo Petruski,
I am sorry that you mislead, whether intentionally or not, about the value of so-called diversity and its impact on productivity.
In common modern parlance “diversity” is defined by color of skin, sex or gender, and – rather more rarely nowadays – economic status. That is precisely the sense the author of this piece uses it, when she calls for more diversity “similar to other STEM fields.”
In contrast, modern *mainstream* parlance *never* implies diversity of opinions by the term “diversity.” Yet this is precisely the technical “diversity” sense that the paper you referenced uses it – it finds that diversity of opinions likely increases “productivity” (well, not exactly productivity but good enough for our use here).
I find that diversity of opinions being a good thing unsurprising. What I do find surprising is the belief that diversity of skin pigmentation, or diversity of genitalia, necessarily implies diversity of opinions or improves group effectiveness. If at all, it seems that in the race for modern “diversity” we are happy to count anything except diversity of opinions as desirable.
Pam Gilmore 4 years ago4 years ago
Check out Reedley College in Reedley, California! We have an awesome Forestry and Natural Resources Program!