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2025 Smokey Bear, Woodsy Owl poster contest voting now open

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2024 contest winner Aiden Finkelstein. You can vote for this year's grand prize winner through May 9. (USDA Forest Service photo by Dominic Cumberland) WASHINGTON, D.C.— It’s that time of the year: Vote now to select the national grand prize winner of the 2025 Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl Poster Contest.…
smokey bear and woodsy owl poster contest, #Youth

Reach to the forest highlights value of nature

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Event attendees wrote personal postcards to forests. USDA Forest Service photo by Lindsey Rustad. WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Feb. 25, Forest Service partnered with the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts on the fun and exciting Forest Youth Day.Visitors enjoyed forestry related crafts, received educational…
#Youth, #ConservationEducation, #Education, #MoonTrees, #ExperimentalForests, #Science

Forest classrooms inspire next generation of environmental stewards

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WASHINGTON, DC—Every year, middle and high school students in communities around the country use our nation’s forests and open spaces as open air, living classrooms. Students enter the forest under guidance of teachers and mentors to explore biology, ecology, technology and natural resources.Since 2020, the National Environmental Education Foundation has partnered with the Forest Service to fund…
NEEF, #Education, #Youth

Teamwork binds firefighting apprentices together

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Lyndon B. Johnson Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center wildland firefighter type 2 and camp crew member Timothy Hawkings. USDA Forest Service photo by Keith Bowers.  COLORADO—Forest Service Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers receive excellent marks for placing their students in well-paying jobs…
job corps civilian conservation centers, #JobCorps, #Youth, #WildlandFirefighting, #Education

Spreading forest fire education

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Students review campfire safety after learning about fire-adapted species. Some fire on the landscape may be beneficial, but is best left to the professionals. USDA Forest Service photo by Lindsey Rae Silvia. VERMONT—Green Mountain National Forest staff kicked off their “Fire in…
#PrescribedFire, #Education, #Youth

Partnership between culture and education

Three students aiming and spraying bear mace at a stationery bear model while a field instructor watched their technique.
Tucked among the pines and sagebrush meadows, along the banks of the Buffalo Fork River in Wyoming, students from multiple Wind River Reservation schools traveled west of the continental divide to the Blackrock District administration site on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The purpose of the visit was to take part in an educational and cultural experience known as the Blackrock Field Camp…
#NativeAmericans, #Youth, cultural, #Education