First graders at Hilldale Elementary working on PLT’s The Closer You Look. Photo credit: Stephanie Baker By: Hope Light & Gavriela Mallory The 2023 Forests of Maine Teachers’ Tours brought Maine educators to commercial timberlands, recreation areas, mills, conservation lands, and family forests. Immersed in hands-on professional development, teachers learned about Maine’s forest industry, forest…
Maine Project Learning Tree coordinator Lena Ives (left) presents Anita Smith (right) the inaugural Anita Smith Stewardship Award With a small gathering of colleagues and friends, Anita Smith, retiring Project Learning Tree Steering Committee Chair, received the newly renamed Anita Smith Stewardship Award from Maine Project Learning Tree (PLT). The award was renamed to honor…
We hosted sixteen educators on our second 2022 Forests of Maine Teachers’ Tour in the Bethel region during the final week of July. These educators joined Maine TREE staff and volunteers for an immersive tour of Maine’s forests with the primary objective of providing them with tools and resources to use forest-based activities in the…
Our first Forests of Maine Teachers’ Tour of 2022 began on July 12 at the Sugarloaf Mountain Hotel. Seventeen educators from throughout Maine joined us for an immersive four-day tour led by Maine TREE’s Executive Director Logan Johnson, Director of Education Lena Ives, and Project Learning Tree (PLT) Facilitator Lindsay Strout. We spent the first…
As highlighted in previous seedlings and OverSTORY articles, Maine TREE Programs and Outreach Coordinator Kelly French worked on a research investigation during the spring semester with the 6th-grade science class at Edna Drinkwater School in Northport. First, the students collected tree cores from trees found on their school’s campus. They then looked at the ring widths and local climate…
After three years of virtual meetings and webinars to fill the absence of in-person conferences, the national Sustainable Forest Initiative and Project Learning Tree hosted their annual conference in Madison, Wisconsin, in the middle of June. Every state in the United States and province in Canada has a Project Learning Tree coordinator responsible for connecting…
With the continuous evolution of education pedagogy, Project Learning Tree (PLT) is consistently creating and revising curriculum for all ages of students to create captivating activities for students and educators. PLT’s newest addition, Trees & Me, was released this March contains hundreds of ideas for fun, easy-to-do, hands-on experiences to connect young children to nature,…
The past three school years have had an upending impact on students, teachers, and parents alike. From countless days spent virtually learning and learning to educate in a hands-off and distanced manner, all educators (formal and non-formal) and school staff deserve our utmost respect for their resilience and dedication to their craft. One of the…
This winter, a 6th-grade science class at Edna Drinkwater School (EDS) in Northport, ME, is diligently investigating the impacts of climate change on their school campus’ trees. Their research question is one that many academics and professional researchers still seek to answer, as many tree species respond very differently to disturbances and differences brought on…
AUGUSTA, Maine, February 2022 – Maine TREE Foundation, an Augusta-based non-profitfocused on environmental education, announces the search for a new executive director. This vital organization educates and advocates for the sustainable use of the forest, and theecological, economic, and social health of Maine’s forest community. Now in its 33 rd year, Maine TREE is the sponsor of…
