Teacher's Guide to Discovering the Forest : For Grades 3 through 8

Remember what it was like playing outside as a child? Maybe you were a tree climber, a ball player, a forest explorer ... or a playground queen or king. Or did you prefer to find your special place and just sit quietly until your family called you in? However, you spent your days outside, you almost certainly enjoyed more unstructured "outdoor time" than your current students do. Today's children have full agendas.

Between school, scheduled activities, television, computers, and cell phones, they have little free time. It's no wonder that children are losing touch with natural spaces like our forests -and yet, time spent in natural spaces has been proven to help children and adults succeed. It reduces stress and improves both concentration and productivity. As such, helping children find "their forest"-their place in nature, imprinted in their hearts no matter where they are-offers benefits that cannot be underestimated. Public forests are ours to use and enjoy. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of public land owned by all of us-and there are millions more when you include local and state natural spaces in this tally. Research has shown that outdoor experience with a mentor is a strong predictor of how environmentally aware and involved a child will become as an adult.

Finding My Forest provides the tools you need to integrate the wonder of our forests right into your curriculum.

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in." - Rachel Carson, Author, Silent Spring

Please participate in the movement to engage our nation's students in forests and natural spaces. Help create the next generation of environmental stewards, so that current and future generations can benefit from a lifetime connection to nature.