Activity
Assessment
Form (pdf)

Sample Student
Work

Benefits of
Environmental
Education

Contact Meg John
(mfry@duke.edu)
with any questions
or comments.

This 10-module, middle school curriculum gives teachers the opportunity to download social studies activities that are based upon archival materials. The centerpiece of each module is a compilation of primary resources--documents, maps, newspaper articles, oral histories or photographs--from which students will be asked to gather, examine, and analyze information, and synthesize insights.  

If Trees Could Talk was produced by the Forest History Society in collaboration with Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, North Carolina State University, Project Learning Tree, and the North Carolina Forestry Association.  Funding was provided by the North Carolina Division of Forest Resources and the USDA Forest Service through the Urban & Community Forestry Grant Program; the Laird Norton Endowment Foundation; the Bradley/Murphy Forestry & Natural Resources Extension Trust, and the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation.
  
Curriculum was developed by Dr. Marsha Alibrandi, Lucy Laffitte, Kathleen Johnson and Cheryl Oakes, with assistance by Steve Anderson, Charlotte Clark,  Angela Baker Cloud, Sylvia Gill, Rita Hagevik, Barbara Jean, Julia Kertz, Mark Megalos, Greg Morris, Rebecca Pruett, Bob Robinson, Jennifer Swanson, and Susan Zachary.  Web-site was designed by En-Sight Group and Lucy Laffitte.

If Trees Could Talk is correlated to National History and Social Studies Standards, as well as several individual state standards. The curriculum also meets the indicators for the Guidelines for Excellence developed by the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE).

We are pleased to announce that Activity 7, "Trees in Your Own Back Yard," was chosen for inclusion in Teaching Green - The Middle Years: Hands-on Learning in Grades 6-8, an anthology of the best articles to appear in Green Teacher magazine in the last decade.