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FFA Forestry Team
| Name | Beth Richardson | | Situation | Orangeburg County sophomore and junior youth who were members of Future Farmers of America (FFA) requested my assistance for training in the area of forestry. Their Vocational Agriculture teacher was not familiar enough with forestry to give them the expertise they needed to compete confidently. | | Response | As the Forestry Agent, I arranged practice sessions with the youth about one to three times per week. The youth committed time after school and on Saturdays to learn about forestry because they had other responsibilities to their school, employers, and families. They were willing to travel through several counties to get all of the information they needed. They were quick to learn the correct pacing methods and tree names. For tree ID in red river bottoms, we went to the Congaree River. For tree ID on Black river bottoms, we went to the Edisto River. In addition to their classroom learning, the youth received instruction through timber cruising, tree identification in the woods, management plan writing,
marking stands down to a basal area of 60 sq feet, forestry tool
identification and compass and pacing exercises with distances of 200 feet or more between points going up and down slopes to learn how to compensate for distances. When learning timber cruising, they would have to estimate the top diameter cut off for volume. If they were wrong, I would chain saw the tree down so that they could see their error thus giving them hands-on experience in estimating merchantable tree heights.
Nearly 100 percent of the youth who are winners in this competition from other schools have been in a forestry curriculum for two years or more. These lads were introduced to forestry 3 months before the competition. | | Impact | The youth won second place as a team and one of the youth who aspires to be a forester won first in the individual category. They were outstanding in learning. The youth wanted to learn and we had fun. They gained new pride in learning a difficult subject matter in such great detail. |
Last update9/2/2008
This website is maintained by Amy West.
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