Category: Urban Forests

Environmental Education on the National Forest in Georgia

by Viniece Jennings, SRS Integrating Human and Natural Systems unit  • 
In 2010, the Obama Administration launched the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative to conserve public lands and promote outdoor recreation. It also encourages community-based recreation programs to engage people where they live, learn, and play. Along similar lines, the U.S. Forest Service has a Kids in the Woods program to support youth nature programs. Recently the…  More 

In a Paradox, Good News for City Frogs

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
In a world rapidly losing its species diversity, amphibians have the highest rate of extinction among vertebrates. Although the usual culprits of habitat loss and human incursion play a major role, a fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) that causes an often fatal skin disease in amphibians has played a major role in the decline or extinction of about…  More 

A City’s Dynamic Mangrove Forest

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
A recent report by U.S. Forest Service researchers on the forests of the San Juan Bay Estuary watershed provides details about a highly dynamic urban forest that provides important benefits for its residents. Tom Brandeis, supervisory research forester with the Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) Forest Inventory and Analysis unit, worked with other Forest…  More 

Young Scientists Find Nature in their Own Backyards

by Sarah Farmer, adapted from materials provided by Josh McDaniel and Annie Hermansen-Báez  • 
“That’s a tufted titmouse,” says one of Sara Charbonnet’s students, looking through his binoculars at one of the bird-feeding stations in Loblolly Woods Nature Park in Gainesville, Florida. In the classroom, the sixth-grader has trouble staying focused, but that all changes when he is outside. “He considers himself a scientist now. Some of the kids…  More 

Outdoor Classroom: Teaching Science on the Forest

by Viniece Jennings, SRS Human and Natural Systems Unit  • 
On a brisk morning in north Georgia, U.S. Forest Service employees prepared for a “Kids in the Wood”’ excursion to Scull Shoals with students from the local Union Point STEAM (STEM plus the arts) Academy and Elementary School, the first rural K-8 STEAM school in Georgia. “Scull Shoals is a historic site located on the…  More 

There’s Nothing Simple about the Urban-Rural Interface

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
A new book edited by U.S. Forest Service researcher Wayne Zipperer, with co-editors David Laband and Graeme Lockaby, focuses on urban-rural interfaces—those places where city and suburban development touch on the countryside. Published by the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America, the articles in…  More 

New Tools for Urban Foresters

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
Across the southeastern United States, rapid urbanization is transforming previously rural areas and creating new environmental challenges. Desoto County, Mississippi, is emblematic of these changes: since 1970, its population has increased by 430 percent, from 36,000 people in 1970 to 159,000 in 2010. The Environmental Protection Agency lists Desoto County as an ozone non-attainment” area,…  More 

When Development Finds the Forgotten Coast

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
  Southern Research Station (SRS) scientist Wayne Zipperer and colleagues from the Center for Forest Sustainability at Auburn University are looking at the effects of urban development on communities where natural resources have long provided both livelihoods and sense of place. The town of Apalachicola is part of what’s known as the Forgotten Coast, an…  More 

Tennessees Urban Forests Valued in the Billions

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Tennessees urban forests, currently valued at about $80 billion, also provide almost $650 million in benefits such as carbon storage, pollution removal, and energy reduction. These values come from Urban Forests of Tennessee, 2009, a newly released report published by the Southern Research Station (SRS). “This represents the first statewide inventory and forest health monitoring…  More 

Green Builder Partners with SRS Research to Reduce Waste

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Most of us know that “building green” means constructing homes that use energy and water resources more efficiently while impacting the environment less.  Probably fewer of us are aware of the significant part recycling wood construction waste can play in reducing environmental impact from home construction.  Across the United States, construction waste from home building…  More