Educating Maine students on forest sector awareness

By Heather Johnson, Graduate Assistant

Maine’s forests are a vital component of the state’s cultural, historical, economic and social identity. They provide a wide variety of jobs within different industries, offering many unique employment opportunities for local communities. In order for Maine’s forests and related industries to continue to grow, students must see a future for themselves in the forest sector.  Additional educational opportunities can provide students with hands-on learning to supplement traditional curriculum helping them better understand the opportunities the forest sector can provide them. 

University of Maine researchers have partnered with Rural Aspirations Project to enhance forest sector education for students in rural Maine communities. Rural Aspirations works with educators and school administrators across the state to provide support to rural schools in the form of responsive professional development, connecting with community partners across the state by participating in a number of networks, and designing and implementing collaborative programs. These provide hands-on learning opportunities to students and teachers, focused on real-world applications and solving authentic community challenges. One of their programs is the Maine Forest Collaborative which educates students on the importance of maintaining forest economies and the career opportunities available within them. The program’s mission is to empower students to actively contribute to their forest communities now and in the future. The collaborative aims to provide forest sector and natural resource awareness that is often lacking in traditional education, especially regarding the breadth of job opportunities. Exposure is vital for students to see they can make a living in this field, and highlights opportunities for students ranging from forestry and forest product manufacturing, to conservation, recreation, and policy. Faculty from the University of Maine’s School of Forest Resources are contributing their expertise in social science research, helping Rural Aspirations evaluate the impact their work has on students and communities.

The Maine Forest Collaborative now works with five high schools and three middle schools in the state. In the program, students use the design thinking process to select a challenge relevant to course objectives, community need, and interest with support from Maine Forest Collaborative Program Coordinator Sara King. As the year progresses, students learn about the challenge and develop a prototype that helps to solve that challenge. Students and teachers are supported with classroom visits from the coordinator and meetings and field work with experts that help them iterate their designs before sharing out their project at a culminating presentation at the end of the year. Students are able to explore a wide variety of topics within forestry and natural resources, such as a class in Tremont that designed an experiment to determine the optimal growing conditions of salt marsh grass. Other projects include sowing native plants, invasive species monitoring and removal at the school/community level, student created management plans for school forests, and more. As King explained, “The big thing is that collaborative projects help engage students in making a positive change in their community and being activated in their communities in a real and meaningful way.” 

Beyond the classroom, Maine Forest Collaborative facilitates cohort days where students from across the state come together for a day of learning, skill building and fun. Last fall, students visited the Maine Local Living School to learn about non-timber forest products and engage in different activities. They rotated in different stations centered around forest caretaking, wood construction, and foraging for edible plants.

Through the Maine Forest Collaborative program, Rural Aspirations hopes that students in Maine will consider all the ways they can have a positive impact on the forest sector and potentially have a career in it. This hope is shared by Lydia Horne, a post doctoral fellow in UMaine’s School of Forest Resources and one of the faculty members involved in the partnership. Horne became involved through her research on the human dimensions of natural resources management and passion for STEM education. Her work includes survey development to better understand what needs to be evaluated within the organization and collecting data on projects. 

Horne is particularly interested in helping Rural Aspirations educate students on the importance of forest sector awareness, a passion shared by King. She and her team define this as understanding all of the different career paths that intersect with the forest, such as forest management, outdoor recreation, wood engineering, and more. “We’re hoping that students can be an active part of their community through these types of hands-on learning experiences,” explained Horne. “We’re also enhancing people’s awareness of why the forest is important from an economical, environmental, social and cultural perspective.”    

Horne and King believe that with the additional education provided by the Maine Forest Collaborative, students will be prepared for the future. According to Horne, “The nature of the work is changing, we want to make sure Mainers at all ages who are interested in working in this industry are prepared for the changes that are happening.” This includes awareness on emerging areas of interest in the forest sector, such as environmental artificial intelligence and new advances in bioproducts. 

Beyond creating opportunities for students, Horne and King hope that their work changes how rural communities in Maine are viewed. King said, “The dialogue in many rural communities is that there’s no future in the forest industry due to closing paper mills and changing technologies…our program helps show students there is a future in the forest sector, that it is varied and that it may look different than it used to.”

Horne agreed saying “We talk about rural areas in a deficit model, but should approach rural communities from an uplifting perspective and an asset-based perspective.” Through the partnership of UMaine and Rural Aspirations, students in Maine are becoming an asset for the future through their education and impact on their communities with forest sector projects. 

This collaboration was made possible through funding from the NSF RII E-CORE Maine-FOREST award (#OIA-2416915).