Welcome,

Thank you for your interest in using the forest as a teaching tool. The forest offers many opportunities to study history, math, science, and more.

Most of our guide book was written by a first grade teacher and is written for the elementary school teacher. The intent is to present the potential the forest has to offer an educator. Please stop by or contact our office to pick up a guide book.

Most of the activities presented in this guide are not original. Some of the activities are appropriate for younger students while others are appropriate for older students. It is left to the teacher to choose the activity and use as he/she sees fit.

In addition to this activity guide, the Starker Forestry Trail is available to any school group for a field trip. The trail is a few miles west of the Corvallis/Philomath communities and just off US Highway 20. Starker Forests, Inc. will gladly host any school group for a field trip to the trail. Just call the Starker Forests, Inc. office (541-929-2477) to make the arrangements.We currently have about 1000 students, mostly K-6, use the trail each school year.

This field trip is free. We provide a forester/guide(s) for the field trip. We have a port-a-potty complete with a wash basin and drinking water for the class. We provide the clipboards, pencils, and booklets for the students. For the occasional student who forgets or has inadequate rainwear, we have child-sized ponchos. Further, we will pay the cost of the school bus for any Benton County public school.

We also have a video and a manual that is available to teachers. This video, I’m Not an Alien; Exploring the Diversity of Today’s Forests, features three young actors, two boys and a girl, grades 4-6 and an adult. The story conveys some of the science and history of the forest.

To make the video useful, a fifth grade teacher provided a great deal of advice with the video script. She wrote the accompanying manual, drawing heavily on many of the curricula that were already available. She designed the lessons and activities to meet many of Oregon’s fifth grade benchmarks. This video and manual are also free to the teacher.