Major themes: everyday products from trees forest management timber harvesting sustainability Vocabulary terms (see glossary): best management practices (BMPs) block cut clearcut high-grade logging Kentucky Forest Conservation Act Master Logger Program selective cut vernal pool

Watch Part 3 (16:10) [requires RealPlayer®]

Kentucky Academic Expectations addressed:

Summary:

When Tim and the kids meet the next day, Tim discovers that the kids, their interest piqued, have looked through their houses for information about trees and products made from trees. Sharonda talks about looking through her house for products from trees. In a flashback, we see her conducting this scavenger hunt.

Considering all the trees it takes to create all those wood products, the kids talk about how hard it is to believe that there are still forests at all. Tim says that for the forests to survive, landowners and forestry professionals have to work together to ensure that they will remain healthy.

Tim and his young friends then meet a professional logger, Billy Joe Kerr, who explains that landowners ask him to harvest timber in a way that will ensure that the forest will continue to produce high-quality timber for many years to come. He outlines some of the different types of harvests that can be done and explains why some are better than others in meeting the goal of sustainability.

Billy Joe then demonstrates how he would selectively harvest some trees in order to get the timber he wants and still protect the health of a tree stand.

Next, Sarah Johns of the Kentucky Division of Forestry explains some specifics about how forests are managed in Kentucky:

The program ends with Tim summarizing the concepts that were presented during the field trip.

Wood products seen in Sharonda’s scavenger hunt (see the tree products page for more ideas):