Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

The Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX, has implemented an experiential learning exercise to improve student learning related to the forest products industry. During the week-long sophomore- or junior-level course Harvesting and Processing, forestry students tour multiple wood products facilities such as sawmills. These mills use complex technologies to maximize the lumber produced from each log, and students were having difficulty understanding the underlying concepts. As part of this course beginning in 2012, students began working in teams to estimate the lumber that will be recovered from a log and then actually sawing their own log using a portable sawmill. Since the introduction of this experiential learning project, student comments, instructor observations, and an increase in the mean course grades suggest that the sawmill activity is not only popular among students, it also allows for a fun, competitive, and engaging way to prepare future natural resource managers for their careers.

Comments

McBroom, M., Kulhavy, D., Stovall, J., & Grisham, R. (2016). Use of a Portable Sawmill for Forestry Instruction. Natural Sciences Education, 45(1), 0. https://doi.org/10.4195/nse2016.0001

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

DOI

https://doi.org/10.4195/nse2016.0001

Download


Share

COinS

Tell us how this article helped you.