MB&G Volunteers for Douglas County School Forestry Tour

Last week, MB&G volunteered with the Douglas County School Forestry Tour. Started in 1961, the annual School Forestry Tour is the oldest natural resources education program in the county with the purpose of educating local fifth grade students about forestry and natural resources management. The event also works to informs students about the diversity of jobs in the industry. Instructors for the tour are recruited through federal, state, and local resource management agencies as well as tribes, non-profit organizations, OSU Extension, and private industrial timber companies.

Every year around 50 volunteers come together to make this event happen, and MB&G’s Hunter Black-Priest, a forester out of our Roseburg office, was on site this year to help. Over the course of 3 days, 800 students toured the forest and learned about forestry. There are two circuits: the “Yellow Loop” and the “Green Loop,” with seven stations on each loop. The stations include wildlife, fisheries/hydrology, forest management, tree identification, fire management, archeology, and forest products. Students rotate through the stations and learn about forest resource management topics from resource professionals.

In the afternoon, the students get to play a few games and do fun activities. This year they set chockers on small logs, cut tree cookies with a crosscut saw, learned about tree identification, and planted seedlings. At the tree planting station, volunteers gave an introduction about how and why seedlings are planted. Each student got to get their hands dirty with planting and had the volunteers available as “planting inspectors” to examine their work. Trees were donated from local nurseries, companies and agencies and each student as able to take home a seedling. We’re looking forward to volunteering again to promote natural resources in our community. Learn more about this event here.