Project Learning Tree is an award-winning environmental education program designed for teachers and other educators, parents, and community leaders working with youth from preschool through grade 12.

PLT’s Nature of Fire features three PLT activities from PLT’s new Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide.

Nature of Fire: Grades 6-8 Activities

Nature of Fire is a downloadable, password protected PDF for educators of students in grades 6-8 that invites students to investigate wildland fire and ecosystem change.

Designed to be flexible, the activities can be used as stand-alone lessons, or all together as a cohesive unit of instruction using a storyline technique.

Activities

1. Nothing Succeeds Like Succession

Students read a story about succession and investigate the connections among plants, animals, and successional stages in a local ecosystem.

2. Living with Fire

Students learn about the three elements that a fire needs to burn and find out how this “fire triangle” can be used to prevent and manage wildland fires.

3. Burning Issues*

Students graph changes in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the course of several decades to explore the relationship among CO2, the Earth’s climate, and wildfires, and suggest ways to reduce negative effects of fire.

* Please Note: Burning Issues is an adaptation of The Global Climate, from Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide. While Part A remains the same, with students investigating atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of the past, present, and future, Part B is uniquely adapted to explore the ways in which CO₂ levels in the atmosphere, global climate change, and wildfire are connected. Check it out for new fire video resources (see Getting Ready) and discussion questions that explore connections between wildfire and its effects on not only local forests but also our global climate.

Features

• Multidisciplinary activities integrate core discipline areas, including STEM subjects, reading, writing, and social studies.
• Hands-on activities connect children to nature in the city and the outdoors.
• How to think, not what to think. Activities are designed to develop students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Background information, suggestions for enrichment, and student assessment tools for teachers.
• Copyright-free Student Pages, or worksheets, can be easily loaded to Google Classroom.
• Activities are practical, adaptable, and flexible. They are easy to do, require minimal preparation; no special supplies are needed.
• Explicit connections to academic standards for science, English language arts, and social studies.
• New supporting features include “Differentiated Instruction” techniques, “Take It Outside!”, “Did You Know?” forest facts, plus a “Career Corner” within each Student Page introduces youth to forest-related careers.

Each PLT activity displays explicit connections to practices and concepts mandated by academic standards. Below is an example from “Nothing Succeeds Like Succession.” Detailed standards correlations are available at www.plt.org/myk8guide.

About PLT’s Activity Collections

Nature of Fire is one of five PLT activity collections. Other titles in this themed series for educators are Sensational Trees for grades K-2, Biodiversity Blitz and Trillions of Trees for grades 3-5, and Discover Your Urban Forest for grades 6-8. PLT’s practical, hands-on activities for teachers and nonformal educators, youth group leaders and home schoolers connect youth to nature and the outdoors. Each activity includes background information, preparation instructions, material and time requirements, step-by-step instructions, and assessment suggestions. Our fun and multi-disciplinary activities appeal to a broad range of learners, including students with diverse learning styles and cultural backgrounds. The activities incorporate STEM, reading, writing, and social studies, and teach students how to think, not what to think about environmental issues for developing students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

PLT Professional Development

Did you know? PLT also offers online, blended, and in-person professional development tailored for specific grade levels, academic standards, environmental topics, and formal and nonformal teaching situations. Consistently rated as one of the best professional development events they have ever experienced, most educators attend a PLT training because they were recommended to it by a colleague. Learn more at www.plt.org/trainings/attend-a-training.

If you are a teacher, librarian, or administrator looking to place an order with a purchase order, please contact PLT's Sales & Marketing Coordinator at PLT@forests.org.