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| In the photo above, eighth-grade students participate in Growing Your Future Environment Career Day, held at Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. They are enrolled in the Lincoln High School Horticulture and Environmental Academies. They set up plant beds, counted fish and planned landscapes—activities intended to show them career options available in forestry. In the photo below, students run a water quality station during the career day program. |
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| “The bottom line is that we can’t have healthy communities or people without access to healthy natural resources such as parks and tree-lined streets.” |
—Dr. Bill Elmendorf
Assistant Professor of Urban and Community Forestry |
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Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park is the largest city park in the United States, and its commission gets help keeping its trees healthy and beautiful from urban forester Julianne Schieffer. She is one of four Penn State Cooperative Extension agents who work for the community forestry program run by the School of Forest Resources and Cooperative Extension. They help communities statewide to enhance trees, green spaces and wildlife by implementing comprehensive community forestry plans.
Developing a community forestry plan helps municipalities take better care of their trees and is an effective way to create healthy places where people can live, according to Dr. Bill Elmendorf, assistant professor of urban and community forestry. He and Dr. Henry Gerhold, professor of forestry genetics, developed the program.
“The bottom line is that we can’t have healthy communities or people without access to healthy natural resources such as parks and tree-lined streets,” Elmendorf added. “People take for granted a healthy environment. It gives them a feeling of comfort and place.”
Program partners include the Pennsylvania Urban and Community Forestry Council, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service, the International Society of Arboriculture and the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Educational Institute. Financial support is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service through the division of State and Private Forestry, the state Bureau of Forestry and electric utility companies.
Beside Schieffer, other extension agents involved in the program include Vincent Cotrone, Northeast Region, Mark Remcheck, Southwest Region, and Scott Sjolander, Northwest Region. Program staff assist in the removal of deteriorating trees, which they replace with carefully selected species. They also provide technical assistance on planning for green space conservation and establishing and managing the community forest; train volunteers to participate in community tree plantings and restoration projects; and provide informal education through workshops, seminars and publications. Assistance with project development and grant applications also is provided.
Last year, program staff worked with 505 Pennsylvania municipalities between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and assisted 598 volunteer groups. Past and ongoing projects include:
 | working with inner-city neighborhoods, including Belmont in Philadelphia and Wilkinsburg near Pittsburgh. |
| offering 30 hours of tree care education through an arborist short course in three statewide locations. |
| developing comprehensive tree plans for eight municipalities in Washington County. |
| implementing a tree planting in Belleville. |
| creating an invasive weed eradication and gateway garden planting along a bluff overlooking Lake Erie. |
This outreach effort also includes youth education. For instance, Schieffer works with the Fairmount Park commission in planning activities at the park to show area children career options in forestry. Last year, one activity—Growing Your Future Environment Career Day—won the National Arbor Day Foundation’s award in education. The program also won the award in 1997.
The career day program enabled 200 eighth-grade children to spend the day at the park’s horticultural center, where they set up plant beds, counted fish and planned landscapes. These activities were intended to show the children career options available in forestry, according to Moore.
“Some of these city kids aren’t sure what to expect,” Schieffer said. “They end up learning that forestry provides well-paying jobs. We provide some options for their future.”
An outreach program of the School of Forest Resources and Penn State Cooperative Extension |
