9-12 Forest Lessons

Science

Experiencing science phenomena is central to science instruction, and a schoolyard forest is a wonderful opportunity for students to directly experience phenomena in the natural world. We have provided a curated collection of lessons and activities that support life sciences education in three main strands: 1) plant structure and function, 2) ecosystem interconnections, and 3) the carbon cycle. This is just the start! Many other connections will emerge for students and teachers as they engage with trees in a spirit of inquiry.

Plant Structure and Function

Acorn Sink or Float Experiment — KidsGardening
Students collect, observe, and test acorns to find out if they are viable for planting, based on whether the seeds float or sink. 

Botany Language Basics for Identification of Flowering Plants — Cornell University
This guide to botanical terms and characteristics helps students deepen their observations of plant anatomy and communicate using standard botany classification vocabulary.

Leaf Transpiration (English) and Transpiración de las Hojas (Spanish) — Canopy
This activity can be used as a simple demonstration of transpiration by leaves or can be expanded into more complex investigations.

Moisture Makers — Outdoor Biology Instructional Strategies
Students use cobalt chloride paper to test and compare moisture from upper versus lower surfaces of living leaves. 

Pine Cone Investigation — Kew Royal Botanic Gardens
Students investigate the effect of temperature on pine cones.

Team Observation — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
Student teams use nature journaling prompts to observe the same subject, such as a tree, and collaborate to get a greater depth and variety of observations and questions.

Twigs: Field Investigations — Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Students observe and describe physical characteristics of twigs and developing buds, develop comparative questions, and record observations.

Ecosystems

Follow the Drop — Earth Partnership
Students investigate the movement of stormwater runoff on their schoolyard, comparing impervious and pervious surfaces, examining topography, creating maps, and calculating runoff volume.

How Cool Is Your Schoolyard?™ — Green Schoolyards America
Students use infrared thermometers to study the microclimates in their schoolyard on hot days, exploring how surface and air temperatures are influenced by the materials in their environment. 

Litter Critters — LSU AgCenter 
Students explore the leaf litter ecosystem, use Berlese funnels to extract invertebrates, and use their sample to calculate a biodiversity index.

Measuring Canopy Cover — Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation
Students measure forest canopy cover, using tools such as densiometers and percentage cover sheets. They then use their measurements for inquiry into the availability of sunlight and precipitation at the forest floor, how habitat is affected by canopy cover, and how different methods of measurement compare.

Schoolyard Biodiversity — Ontario Teachers’ Federation
Students survey biodiversity on their schoolyard and calculate a biodiversity index.

Soil Infiltration Tests — Earth Partnership
These experiments use a cut-can infiltrometer to investigate soil water infiltration in natural school yard areas. 

Solar Energy and Soil Temperature — Paleontological Research Institution
In this outdoor experiment, students measure soil temperatures at different depths and different times throughout the day to investigate how soil absorbs solar energy.

Water from Trees — LEAF - Wisconsin’s K-12 Forestry Education Program 
Students calculate the mass of water transpired from leaf samples over a 24-hour period.

Wildlife Inventory — KidsGardening
Students investigate what species live in their schoolyard habitat.

The Carbon Cycle and Climate Literacy

Understanding the carbon cycle is a key part of understanding the science of climate change. Trees on the schoolyard are an opportunity to directly explore photosynthesis and carbon uptake and storage by plants. Younger and beginning students can start with basic concepts, such as learning about leaves, photosynthesis, and gas exchange. Older and more advanced students can build on this knowledge to tackle these concepts in greater complexity and calculate carbon storage by their schoolyard’s trees. This will help students better understand and value how their schoolyard forest is part of the solution for mitigating carbon emissions. 

The Carbon Dioxide Game — Green Teacher
In this role-play, students learn about climate change, the greenhouse effect, and human impacts and solutions. This activity is best done in an open space outdoors.

Caught Up in the Carbon Cycle — Green Teacher
In this role-play, students simulate the movement of carbon molecules to learn about the carbon cycle. This activity is best done in an open space outdoors.

Photosynthesis Drives Change In Atmospheric CO2 — Paleontological Research Institution
Students use a carbon dioxide sensor outdoors to collect data on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels throughout the day.

Trees and Climate Change — Canopy
This activity guides students in calculating carbon storage in a tree based on its diameter and height. It also includes basic background information on photosynthesis and greenhouse gasses. Please note that this activity depends on the tree being at least 2 meters/6 feet high and 0.25m/25 cm in diameter. 

“Science as One Way of Knowing, Not the Only Way

All cultures have a deep history of observing, investigating, and living closely with the natural world that predates modern “science.” Humans have always gathered knowledge about the natural world in ways that are similar to current scientific thinking and in other ways that differ from scientific thinking. The ecological knowledge that is obtained by Indigenous peoples and western science are both valid, with each having roots that are based on philosophical foundations, methods of validation, and communities of respected experts. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) refers to an evolving body of knowledge based on hundreds or thousands of years of close observations of ecosystems by Indigenous people.”

— BEETLES, Lawrence Hall of Science

Mathematics

Trees and their parts—leaves, twigs, seeds, and flowers—can be used for applying the mathematical skills of sorting, measuring, classifying, counting, estimating, data collection, and understanding patterns. The sensory nature of these materials can make math lessons appealing to a broader segment of the student population and give them an opportunity to collect real-life data to analyze and represent. Below you will find a curated collection of lessons and activities that use schoolyard forests to support math education.

Counting Spirals — Double Helix
Pine cone spirals, leaf arrangements, and petal numbers—these are just a few of the natural objects students can investigate for patterns in the Fibonacci sequence.

Does Your Tree Measure Up? — Learning withoutDoors
Students measure the height of trees using a variety of methods and tools.

Estimating Environments — Royal Horticultural Society
Students learn to estimate the number of leaves on a tree as well the surface area of a leaf.

Fractal Trees — Fractal Foundation
In this math activity, students explore the natural fractal branching of a tree, measure branch lengths and angles, and calculate quotients and ratios. 

Hidden Figures — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
Students apply their math skills outdoors, whether quantifying their school forest or an individual tree. This activity includes suggestions for measuring, timing, counting, and estimating. This activity can also be done as a nature journaling lesson. 

10 Ways to Measure a Tree — Learning through Landscapes
This guide provides a variety of ways to measure tree heights, from simple to complex. 

Tree Math Prompts — Green Schoolyards America
A short handout to inspire teachers about math connections they can make in their schoolyard forest.

Language Arts

The sensory stimulation experienced in nature can open new worlds in children’s imagination, vocabulary, and questioning. Teachers can use the schoolyard forest areas as an outdoor classroom setting for their existing curriculum, but they can also use this awakened enthusiasm to support outdoor literacy games, creative writing, nature journaling, and hands-on research skills. Nature journaling, in particular, is an activity ripe with Language Arts possibilities that also intersect with Science and Mathematics. We have provided some curated lessons below that encourage teachers to take learning outside.

Nature Journaling: I Notice, I Wonder, It Reminds Me Of  — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
This excellent set of prompts for developing observation and inquiry skills includes both drawing and writing. This can be used as a once-off activity or can be incorporated into a series of nature journal pages.

Poetry of Place and Moment — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
This activity provides a scaffold for writing poetry, linking observations to internal experiences and thoughts. It can also be part of a nature journaling curriculum.

Writing to Observe, Writing to Think — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren 
In this nature journaling activity, students use writing as an observation and thinking tool, while experimenting with different forms of writing they can use in their nature journal, such as labels, sentences, paragraphs, bullet points, or different fonts.

Social Science

Schoolyard forests provide easy and powerful ways to connect students to a place. Mapping activities on school grounds, for example, are a way in which teachers can make connections to the geography curriculum. In addition, teachers can make connections to the schoolyard forest when studying topics such as human modifications to the landscape and resource use, local indigenous knowledge and relationships with trees, the current and historic economic value of different tree species, and trees in ancient civilization mythology. We have provided some curated lessons below that focus on students learning outdoors.

Animal Perspectives: Mapping the School Ground, PDF page 67 — Evergreen
Students map the school ground while evaluating it from the perspective of other species. 

Create a Schoolyard Site Survey Map, PDF page 115 — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
This one-pager helps teachers get started thinking about mapping various schoolyard features.

Exploring our Relationship to Place, PDF page 78 — Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
Students work with the cardinal directions and a series of prompts to explore relationships with place, community, economy, and the globe.

Mapping a Study Site — Outdoor Biology Instructional Strategies
Students use symbols to represent different plant species and different natural features as they map their school site.

Mapping Your Schoolyard — Earth Partnership
Students work with compasses and grids to measure and map their schoolyard and create scaled drawings.

Photo Monitoring — Green Schoolyards America
Students use permanent locations to photograph and record changes to the forest over the long term, developing a record for future cohorts to conduct historical research on their schoolyard forest.

Soundscape Maps — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
Students apply mapping skills to the soundscape outdoors. They tune into the sounds around them and map them using directions, symbols, and legends. This activity also develops a sense of place through sound. 

Visual and Performing Arts

Nature makes a rich and inviting subject for the visual arts. The activities showcased below include (1) art lessons that use plant materials that can be gathered from a schoolyard forest and (2) lessons that feature trees as the subject for different media such as drawing, painting, or photography. The forest can also be used as an outdoor setting for arts classes when material needs are simple, or be a source of inspiration that is further interpreted in the art studio. We have also included a few lessons on sound that can complement concepts being taught in music or science classes.

Autumn Leaf Bunting — Royal Horticultural Society
Students press leaves from trees to make a beautiful display to string outside, in hallways, or in classrooms.

Counting Spirals — Double Helix
Pine cone spirals, leaf arrangements, and petal numbers—these are just a few of the natural objects students can investigate for patterns in the Fibonacci sequence.

Forest Karaoke: Transcribing Birdsong — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
Students learn to creatively transcribe sounds (from birds or other auditory phenomena) using words, drawing, diagramming, and numbers.

Garden Photography — KidsGardening 
Students develop their photography skills by learning more about framing their shot, shifting their perspective, exploring composition, and other photography techniques.

Nature Journaling: I Notice, I Wonder, It Reminds Me Of  — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
This excellent set of practices for developing observation and inquiry skills includes drawing and writing. This can be used as a once-off activity or can be incorporated into a series of nature journal pages.

Inspirational Tree Mural, PDF page 200 — EcoRise Youth Innovations
Students create a mural inspired by observing and researching trees in their schoolyard.

Painting the Seasons, PDF page 29 — Green Schoolyards America
Students bring the art studio outside to create paintings of trees while observing and recording changes throughout the year.

Paint with Chlorophyll! — Emmy Brockman
Students extract chlorophyll with acetone or isopropyl alcohol and use the green pigment as paint.

Plant Mandala Journal (English), Diairio de Mandalas de Plantas (Spanish), and Plant Mandala Journal (Chinese) — Plant Heroes
Students create a mandala from natural materials, learn about symmetry, and have an opportunity to engage in mindfulness and reflection. 

Pressed Flower Card — Life Lab
This guide provides suggestions on how to press and dry plant material, which can be used for art projects or herbarium specimens.

Printing with Leaves — Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Students use paint or ink with a variety of leaves to capture shapes and textures on paper.

The Secret Picture, PDF page 69 (English) and The Secret Picture, PDF page 17 (Chinese) — Naturskolan i Lund
In this partnered activity, students create simple pieces of “secret” art, with the fun twist of practicing communication skills as they keep their backs to each other.

Signs and Displays — Green Schoolyards America
This tip sheet showcases several possibilities for creating signs for trees while incorporating the arts and language arts as well as science and social studies.

Soundscape Maps — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
Students apply mapping skills to the soundscape outdoors. They tune into the sounds around them and map them using directions, symbols, and legends. This activity also develops a sense of place through sound. 

Social-Emotional Learning

It is now well understood that the social-emotional aspect of teaching and learning is a critical component of education. We also know that being outdoors in nature supports social-emotional development. The curated resources below support the five competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. They also overlap with curriculum in the sciences, social sciences, and visual arts, while developing environmental literacy. 

Animal Perspectives: Mapping the School Ground, PDF page 67 — Evergreen
Students map the school while evaluating it from the perspective of other species. This activity can be used to develop social awareness and responsible decision-making skills.

Build A Tree — California ReLeaf 
Students role-play the different parts and functions of a tree, including the heartwood and sapwood. This team activity develops social awareness and relationship skills.

Busy and Calm, PDF page 56  — Karel Komárek Proměny Foundation.
Students survey different areas of the school grounds to evaluate how they feel in them, build self-awareness, and develop responsible decision-making. 

The Climate Ribbon — The Climate Ribbon
This arts ritual gives students a means to express their grief and affirm solidarity with each other. 

Forest Bathing — Learning through Landscapes
In this mindfulness activity, students spend time in nature, whether it is the school forest or other natural areas. This helps build self-management and self-awareness skills.

Meet a Tree — Sharing Nature Worldwide
In this activity, one student leads a blindfolded partner to “meet” a tree and get to know it through the sense of touch. This trust-building activity can be used to develop relationship skills, social awareness, self-management, and self-awareness skills.

Plant Mandala Journal (English), Diairio de Mandalas de Plantas (Spanish), and Plant Mandala Journal (Chinese) — Plant Heroes
Students practice mindfulness while creating a mandala from natural materials.

The Secret Picture, PDF page 69 (English) and The Secret Picture, PDF page 17 (Chinese) — Naturskolan i Lund
In this partnered activity, students create simple pieces of “secret” art, with the fun twist of practicing communication skills as they keep their backs to each other.

Sit Spot — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
This nature journaling activity gives students the opportunity to notice their own experience in nature, while slowing down, developing mindfulness, and constructing their own narrative. It builds self-awareness and self-management skills.

Team Observation — John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren
Students use the practices of nature journaling to observe the same subject, such as a tree, and collaborate to get a greater depth and variety of observations. This team-building activity can be used to develop relationship skills and social awareness.

Tree Faces — Learning through Landscapes
Students use clay to sculpt a face on a tree while incorporating features of the tree. This can be used to build self-awareness and social awareness.

Tree of Hope — Roots and Shoots
This self-reflection activity invites students to connect to a tree and to explore their personal roots (e.g., community, family) and shoots (hopes and dreams). 

Physical Education

Kinesthetic learning is a great addition to the educational toolkit. Involving students in stewardship tasks such as watering, weeding, and mulching keep young bodies active, bending, and stretching in a variety of ways. Read more in Stewardship Tasks with Students. A creative collaboration between academic and physical education teachers could also result in lessons tailored to each school’s curriculum needs. 

Tree Pose — Bluearth
This classic yoga pose can be included in a yoga routine. Tree pose improves balance, core strength, and concentration.

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Schoolyard Forest System℠

The Schoolyard Forest System℠ Resource Library is a set of practical tools for schools and districts working to increase tree canopy on public school grounds to shade and protect PreK-12 students from extreme heat and rising temperatures due to climate change. Funding for the first phase of this initiative was provided by a grant administered by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Urban and Community Forestry Program, and private philanthropy.