Klamath County, Ore. – A remote section of forest is serving as a classroom for Klamath County sixth graders this week.
Ron Loveness of the Winema Hoo Hoo Club has been teaching kids about forest products for 52 years.
“It’s kind of a tradition,” noted Loveness. “Kids go home, talk about it, and their parents go, ‘I remember that’ – and now, grandparents go, ‘I remember that’.”
About 550 students are passing through forest learning stations about 11 miles northwest of Keno this week.
In addition to forest products, other topics include wildlife, soils, fire protection, tree identity, reforestation, recreation and safety, and forest management.
Lily Cline of Shasta Elementary School has already learned a lot. She said, “What good trees look like, and what bad trees look like, and we learned about how we can tell how old they are.”
High school students that were once on the tour now work as assistants.
“I want to be a teacher when I grow up,” explained Henley F.F.A. member Kiley Castle. “So I wanted to always come here and help the kids when I got old enough – so I’m pretty happy I get to come do that.”
And Ron Loveness is happy too. He said, “It’s been a great education for the kids, and they enjoy it – and we like to inform them.”
The school forestry tour in Klamath County was first organized by the O.S.U. Extension Service in 1963.
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