We were excited to learn recently that the New Hampshire chapter of Project Learning Tree (PLT) is receiving new support, thanks in large part to the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association (NHTOA). PLT is an environmental education program which provides instructional materials and professional development opportunities, working with educators, parents, and community members. It is managed at the national level by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, but depends in part on state coordinators to provide its services. Over the next three years, NH PLT will become a program of NHTOA’s education foundation.
We talked with Cheri Birch, NH PLT board member and the program director of NHTOA, about plans for the 2024 Forests of New Hampshire Teacher Tour, to be held this coming July at the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Cardigan Lodge in Alexandria. This is the fourth year that Cheri, who joined the PLT Board in 2019, and other PLT volunteers have put together the tour. The four-day event will include a number of educational field trips, including a visit to Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest.
There’s a direct line between Cheri’s passion for PLT’s work, and her own life experiences. She grew up in Connecticut and credits her father for inspiring her love of the woods. “My dad used to bring us in the forest as much as he could,” she said. A high school teacher encouraged her to explore forest-related career opportunities, and after completing her studies at University of Maine’s school of forestry in 1984, she took her first job as a forester working on what was then the Champion lands in northern New Hampshire. Cheri has been active in tree-related work in one way or another ever since, from consulting forestry work in southern New Hampshire, to a ten-year career as an environmental science teacher, to her current role at NHTOA.
Cheri first became aware of PLT during her decade in the classroom, when she used some of its curricula, although the teacher tour concept was new to her. Maine TREE Foundation, which has run a popular PLT teacher tour program for many years, provided encouragement and practical support. “I attended a Maine TREE tour in 2019 to see what it was all about, and if it was something we would like to do in New Hampshire and could do, and they provided us all the materials and information we needed,” she said.
In New Hampshire, as in Maine, the tours take the form of four-day immersive experiences that combine hands-on curricular activities and multiple field trips, where participants can talk directly with a diversity of people involved in forest-related activities, ranging from habitat restoration to wood production. The participant mix is likewise diverse, drawing teachers from all over the state (and sometimes surrounding states), whose experiences range from pre-K to high school instruction in public, private, and homeschool learning environments.
In addition to enriching these teachers’ forest knowledge, Cheri said, the tours help schools connect to local resources, and inspire future school field trips. For example, this year, one of the 2023 participants brought his 4th and 5th grade students to an active timber harvesting operation in Hollis, and that same teacher is also planning a trip to the HHP saw mill in Henniker.
According to NHTOA Executive Director Jasen Stock, the new organizational structure is a natural progression from PLT and NHTOA’s previous collaboration, as well as NHTOA’s continued work with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. His members have a strong interest in promoting both public appreciation of forests and the forest workforce, and they are very supportive when he asks them to give time to the teacher tours. “The enthusiasm for it has been really neat to see,” he said. “You call up a mill owner, logger, or forester and say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing, we’d like a tour.’ I have yet to have someone say no. They’re all very enthusiastic to do it.”
Interested teachers can contact Cheri directly at cbirch(at)nhtoa.org or (603) 801-7012.