Exploring Old Growth Forests: A Teacher's Manual.

"Exploring Old Growth Forests" is an Ontario (Canada) program that provides secondary students with hands-on experiences in old growth forests. Activity-based and student-centered, the program aims to develop student awareness of the importance of old growth forests and the need to conserve them. This manual provides teachers with background information and detailed instructions for student activities in the forest. Background information covers general characteristics of old growth forests; reasons why such forests are valuable; old growth forest ecology and the influences of water, light, and fire; and the importance of old growth forests to birds, other wildlife, and the ecological web. A program overview discusses pretrip organization, lists equipment needs, suggests tree identification guides, and recommends steps for choosing and laying out a forest study plot. Field activity descriptions include objectives, equipment needs, additional background information, instructions, forms for data collection, illustrations, and summary questions for students. Activities are arranged in four sections: (1) identification and measurement of live trees and estimation of site productivity; (2) identification and classification of snags (dead standing trees) and observation of wildlife activity on snags; (3) classification and measurement of logs (downed woody debris); and (4) identification and measurement of young trees (forest regeneration) and identification of nonwoody plants. A final section provides old growth baseline data for eastern deciduous and coniferous forests and presents a behavior code for students. (SV)