New Forest Technology Students at Penn State Mont Alto

Penn State Mont Alto forest technician students gathered for the a picnic at Mont Alto State Park yesterday afternoon. In spite of the heat it was a great time for freshman and sophomore students to meet and greet!

Below are most of the freshmen in front of the pavilion.






And here are more pictures from the gathering.

Fatal Accident at Central Park Puts Focus on Trees - NYTimes.com

Fatal Accident at Central Park Puts Focus on Trees - NYTimes.com

This article highlights the unseen dangers from park trees. Arborists can inspect trees, but it's impossible to see every possible hazard. For students studying urban tree care this article shows how important their work is!

New Topographic Map Formats

While looking for a map on the US Geological Survey site today I found a new format of topographic maps. Previously it was easy to download a scanned topographic map in pdf format. Today I noticed that for some regions there is a new kind of map called a US Topo. It has a true color aerial photo for a base with all the usual topographic map features on top.

For example, below is a part of the Iron Springs 7.5 minute map showing the Waynesboro Reservoir, which was made in 1995.

Following is the June 2010 version of the same area.

For some maps there is a Digital Maps beta version that doesn't yet have the contour lines. The new maps can be purchased in paper format. Even better is the pdf format. The data in the new maps can be separated in the reader, just like in a GIS. When you install the free TerraGo add-on in Adobe Reader you can make measurements of direction and distance directly on the map. Very Cool! It is all available at http://store.usgs.gov Topographic maps will never be the same again!

Visit to Redwood Country

P1080451

Originally uploaded by P_Linehan.

A group of Penn State Mont Alto forestry students and faculty recently visited the redwood forests in Humboldt County, California. Seen here during a tour of Humboldt University's Schatz Demonstration Tree Farm, led by manager Gordon Schatz, are students Mitch Oswald and Zach Hetrick, faculty Craig Houghton, Beth Brantley and  Peter Linehan, and students Tyler Wakefield, and Nate Rosenberg. The students have each participated in forestry research projects funded by Schatz research fund grants.

During the visit from June 11 to 15 the group visited the Avenue of the Giants in  Humboldt Redwood State Park with its groves of amazing trees.

The tour also included parts of Redwood State Park, the Arcata Community Forest, and the Humboldt Lagoons State Park, among other places. Everyone learned a great deal about the life cycle and ecology of the amazing redwoods!

Thanks to Schatz family for funding student travel for this trip. Also, many thanks to Gordon and Karen Schatz for their time and excellent company! To see more pictures click here. See a map of the visit here.

Graduation 2010

Graduation at Penn State Mont Alto was held on May 15. Below are the forest technology graduates. ( A few were missing).



It's always nice when forest technology alumni return to Mont Alto.  Flanked  by Dr. Brantley and Mr. Houghton; Andrew Baker, Chance Yeakly, and Tiffany Roddy from the class of 2008, received their B.S. in forestry diplomas at Mont Alto's graduation ceremony.

End of Selective Availability Anniversary

The June 2010 issue of  Forestry Source (subscription required) contains a short primer on GPS. Author Steve Wilent mentioned the tenth anniversary of the end of Selective Availability (SA) on May 1, 2000, following an executive order by President Clinton. Under the SA program deliberate error was introduced into the GPS signal so that the live signal would have an error of about 100 meters. This was done to protect national security during military operations. Only military GPS receivers had a chip to remove the error.

The policy was changed to promote the use of GPS in the general economy. The military agreed fully with the new policy. There were ways around SA, by using a supplemental FM correction signal broadcast locally by the US Coast Guard or by doing post-processing correction of field data in the office.

Now that the GPS signals has no more deliberately introduced error the use of GPS has grown dramatically  in all parts of the economy from cars to personal devices. The sport of geocaching would not be possible if SA were still in operation.

For foresters, the end of SA has meant that low cost, rugged, recreational grade GPS receivers can be used for most forestry operations. The accuracy of these receivers is more than enough for most forestry mapping  operations. The forest technology program at Penn State Mont Alto has been able to acquire sufficient receivers so that all the students can have one to use for field work. Collecting GPS data in the field and using it to create maps has now become a normal part of all fieldwork.

We should make the end of SA a national holiday!

Chestnut Planting on the Waynesboro Watershed

Forest technology students in the silviculture class established a chestnut seed orchard in the Waynesboro Watershed. These latest hybrid nuts from the American Chestnut Foundation should be nearly resistant to the blight. The orchard will provide nuts to help restore the american chesnut to the forest.


See the article in The Herald Mail.

Forestry Picnic 2010

The weather for this year's forestry picnic was ideal! And the food was good, too. The students shared jokes, stories, and looked forward to coming together again as Mont Alto alumni.

New Honor Society Members

Two graduating sophomores from Penn State Mont Alto were inducted to the CEFTS* Forest Technology Honor Society this past week based on their outstanding academic achievements. Congratulations Josiah and Severin!

* CEFTS is the Countil of Eastern Forest Technician Schools

Academic Festival 2010

Forestry students were well represented in the Penn State Mont Alto Academic Festival on April 14th. Click on the pictures to see a description of each project. The projects ranged from aspen regeneration to forest type mapping. The students are getting quite skillful with GIS to map their work.

New Tools for Communicating the Forestry Message

Students in Forest Management Practices (FORT 250) experimented with making short videos on a forestry topic. They used Flip cameras, which make it relatively simple create, edit, and upload videos. Is Hollywood calling?

Going Up, Anyone?

At the end of the semester forest technology students in the Arboriculture class finish the semester by doing one last group climb in the biggest yellow poplar tree on campus (located by the water tower). Last semester's clim in December 2009 was a very wet day. The climb went well and everyone had a great time.

Happy New Year!

2009 ended in a snowstorm over Mont Alto. With the campus closed for the holidays, the snow can stay untrodden for a little while. Best wishes and success to all in 2010!

Hunting Season Underway

Pennsylvania’s deer hunting season is now underway with archery and black powder hunting. The rifle season will come for the two weeks after Thanksgiving. Hunting is critically important to maintain Pennsylvania’s forests. With an excellent climate, good habitat, and a ready supply of food the deer would soon eat all the seedlings and saplings, as they have in many areas. With no natural predators around only hunting can help reduce the numbers.

Hunting has been a Pennsylvania tradition for a long time, as this 1961 photo from the Forest History Society shows. Click here to see the photo on Flickr and to find more information. The photo caption reads: “Woman hunter showing off her 4-point buck shot in Limestone Township, near McGee Hollow, Warren Co., Pa. Sheffield Ranger District.”

Keystone Chapter SAF Fall Meeting

The Keystone Chapter of the Society of American Foresters was held (10/22) at Kings Gap State Park at the Cameron/Masland Mansion. What a beautiful day to be out in the forest!

For the technical part of the meeting Ellen Schultzabarger, Ecological Services Section Chief of the DCNR Bureau of Forestry described the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program (formerly the PA Natural Diversity Inventory). Rich Schockey, Ecological Services Environmental Review Specialist discussed the importance of and the need to protect forested buffers for water conservation. The natural heritage program now has a convenient online tool to help find endangered species in most parts of the state to help planning for forestry and other operations. It will also help with the permitting process.

Penn State Mont Alto forest technician students Ethan Wall, Josiah Knopsnider, Phil Bietsch, Tim Benedict, and Severin Thierwechter attended the meeting and are seen here relaxing in the mansion's lounge. Thanks to SAF members for sponsoring the students.

During a brief business meeting the Keystone chapter elected new officers:

• Chair: Steve Wacker
• Vice Chair Dave Nelson
• Sec./Treas. Craig Houghton
• Executive Committee Members: Mike Kusko, Jr. (past chair), Scott Kurtzman, and Rachel Billingham
  

Use Google Maps Street View to Demonstrate Forest Management Activities

Normally you wouldn't think of Google Maps Street View as a helpful tool for forestry. Most of the scenes are concentrated in urban areas, where the people are. However, Google has been sending its cars out from the city centers to the rural areas. This can provide a good opportunity to illustrate forestry operations in an embedded map view.

For example, this scene shows the aftermath of a pine plantation removal operation in the Waynesboro Watershed in Hamiltonban Township, PA. The site has been treated with herbicides to remove invasive plants and shrubs. Most of it has been replanted, although none of the seedlings are yet visible.

View Larger Map

As with all Google Maps views this one can be opened to its own screen for viewing or manipulated in its own window.

Further along the same road a deer fence was put in place to protect hardwood regneration in a stand where diseased hemlock and overtopped trees were removed several years previously. Use the map controls to pan up and see the canopy opening. (Click on the map and move the view around.)

View Larger Map

This last view shows the PA Bureau of Forestry Ralph Brock Seed Orchard along Rte 233. The pines here have been topped to concentrate cone production on the lower branches. This treatment mystifies people who drive by until the purpose is explained to them!

View Larger Map

Charles C. Mann at the SAF Convention

The keynote speaker at the Society of American Foresters national convention in Orlando (10/1/2009) was Charles C. Mann, the author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. In this fascinating book, Mann shows that the Native American civilizations very significantly impacted the environment of North and South America in the centuries before the Europeans came.

Mann shows that it wasn't just the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incans who made the changes. Indians in the Amazon Basin manufactured thousands of acres of fertile soil from broken pottery and charcoal to grown their crops. They also planted fruit and nut trees extensively throughout the area. The Indians of North America thinned the forests with fire to ease travel and to make hunting better. They also bred corn to become the crop we find so useful today and extended the range where corn could be grown.

The great tragedy Mann describes was the widespread deaths of Indians from infections of the Eurasian diseases to which they had no immunity. Unlike Europe and Asia, the Indians found no domestic animals in the Americas. Consequently they didn't experience the flu and other diseases and had no immunity. Once the European settlers arrived they found an essentially depopulated continent where the forests had grown back thicker than they had been in thousands of years.

With Columbus weekend upon us, what is the signifcance of these new archaeological discoveries for forestry? Many environmentalists believe that before 1492 there was a veritable Garden of Eden in the Americas, where the Indians lived, but had no noticeable effect on the environment. Consequently, the best policy would be to return to these pre-Columbus conditions and return the environment to its pristine state. But if there was no Eden, then we have the responsibility to manage the forests for the use people and to ensure sustainability. It's just that there is no perfect state to return to. It's up to us to figure out what we want the forests to look like!

Mont Alto Students at the Society of American Foresters Convention

This year’s Society of American Foresters Convention was held at the Walt Disney Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Fl. Four Penn State Mont Alto students attended the convention and competed in the Quiz Bowl.

Alex Lamoreaux, Hunter Stauffer, Frank Grano, and Severin Thierwechter preparing for the first round.

A large, enthusiastic crowd watches the competition. Mont Alto beat West Virginia University in the first round and lost narrowly to Oregon State University in the second round.

View Full Album

Scenes around Coronado Springs. The Disney resorts do a good job of protecting the environment and incorporating wildlife. Check out Alex’s blog for pictures of birds and other wildlife. Also at the meeting we got a chance to visit with Mont Alto forestry alumni who are currently studying at University Park.

Starting the New Year

P1060624
Originally uploaded by P_Linehan.

Forest technology students started the new year with a Forestry Weekend at King's Gap Environmental Center last Friday 8/28. In spite of the wet weather the students got an introduction to orienteering.

Other events included pizza at Arturo's, a forestry movie night, and the freshman/sophomore picnic at Mont Alto State Park.

Class of 2011

Welcome to the Forest Technology Class of 2011 at Penn State Mont Alto! Freshman orientation was a very busy day. Fortunately, we avoided the rain on a cloudy, humid day. Classes start on Monday when we trade flip-flops for hiking boots and hardhats!