Educators
When it comes to introducing young kids to the outdoors, parents and educators play a crucial role. This page offers many tools and resources to help you create lesson plans, find activities, and develop your abilities in order to foster a deeper relationship with the outdoors.
Ideas for the Classroom
- FSNatureLIVE! brings together webinars and information about pollinators, climate change, wetlands, bats, bird migration, butterflies and rainforests.
- North American Association for Environmental Educators has more than 5,400 links divided among 300 categories!
Educational Activities and Curricula
Project Wild - Project WILD links students and wildlife worldwide through curriculum, resource materials, educator workshops, and other means. It used by the Forest Service and a number of other federal and state agencies.
Project Learning Tree - Project Learning Tree (PLT) is the American Forest Foundation's environmental education program that produces curriculum materials for students in grades PreK-12. PLT provides training and professional development opportunities for teachers, non-formal educators, and teachers in training. The program addresses many environmental topics, but trees and forests receive special emphasis.
Project WET – Project WET is a program to educate people world-wide about water resources and water management. It supports its mission by providing water resource materials, conducting teacher training, and organizing community water events. It used by the Forest Service and a number of other federal and state agencies.
Conservation Education Websites
Hands on the Land - Hands on the Land is a national network of field classrooms connecting students, teachers, and parents to their public lands and waterways.
Citizen Science
Citizen science partners scientists with citizens to study science and conservation. Data collected by citizens – school children to senior citizens, is used in real science research projects. Data collection tasks are suitable for groups, individuals or families.
Electronic Field Trips and Webcasts
America’s Rainforests - This site investigates rain forests in Puerto Rico, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It offers a webcast, lesson plans, activities and resource materials.
Migration Science and Mystery - Follow along on an electronic field trip tracing the flight of shorebirds over 6,500 miles from Panama to the Arctic Slope of Alaska. The website features lesson plans, activities, videos and more.
Monarch Live! - Join a distance learning adventure about monarch butterflies. During the 2008-09 school year, MonarchLIVE broadcast and webcast from several points along the migration. Those programs are available as archived video on this web site.
Pollinator Live - Participate in one of the 2010-11 school year the “Pollinator Live” webcasts to learn how the activities of bees and other pollinators result in one out of three bites of food you eat.
Especially for Families
Discover the Forest - Spending time in nature provides numerous benefits for families, presenting both bonding opportunities and the chance to instill a lifelong love for the outdoors. The Discover the Forest campaign, a public service campaign that encourages parents of tweens to experience the outdoors with their family to strengthen their connection with nature and each other.
Nature Lab – Nature Lab is The Nature Conservancy's youth curriculum platform.