K-12 Education at Harvard Forest

Through the Fisher Museum, Harvard Forest offers a variety of formal and informal programs and collaboration opportunities to local and regional schools. These programs emphasize the importance of past land use, as depicted in the Fisher Museum dioramas, as a driver of the many ecological processes we are studying in the Forest today. Most field trips include visits to long-term study sites.

The range of opportunities includes:

• field trips to Harvard Forest for students and teachers
• Conduct field-based research at your school and join other classrooms around the state as part of the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Program. Harvard Forest Schoolyard Coordinator facilitates school-based ecology research projects.
• internship opportunities on research projects for high school (or community college) students
• Professional development for teachers
• collaboration between Harvard Forest scientists and K-12 classroom teachers
• Summer Institute for Teachers - The Harvard Forest offers a Forest Ecology training institute for teachers of grades 2-12. Learn how to implement field studies related to local ecosystems with your students right in your schoolyard.

PDP's

Harvard Forest is certified by the Massachusetts Department of Education to provide workshops that offer teachers Professional Development Points (PDP's) required to maintain professional certification. We collaborate with the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Educational Collaborative (STEMTEC) at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and the Hampshire Educational Collaborative to offer professional workshops.