The following materials and handouts have been created by NC PLT facilitators and coordinators. Please feel free to use this page as a supplement for your classroom activities, at your environmental education center, or in your workshops. Though these materials are not copyrighted, please do not use them in any publications.
PLT Tree Trunks are located at Educational State Forests across the state and are filled with resources and materials to assist you with implementing PLT activities in the forest, or check it out for use at your facility!
Activity Supplements Available from National PLT
The national PLT web site houses pdfs in English and Spanish for all the student pages in the Explore Your Environment K-8 guide. To access these and other support resources, you will need to create an account with national PLT. We suggest that you use a personal email address for your account, and not a work account in case your employer changes. Once your account is created, you will have access to the host of free online resources for the K-8 guide, the early childhood Trees and Me guide, all secondary modules, iTree, Southeastern Forests and Climate Change, and GreenSchools. You account will also serve as a dashboard access any of your online purchases, e-Units, Activity Bundles.Nature Activities for Families and the PLT Newsletter, The Branch, can also be accessed online.PLT Tree Trunks
PLT Tree Trunks are located at Educational State Forests across the state and are filled with resources and materials to assist you with implementing PLT activities in the forest, or check it out for use at your facility!
Explore Your Environment K-8 Guide (2021)
- Adopt a Tree This booklet can be used as a template for an Adopt a Tree project throughout the school year. Students are encouraged to draw, do rubbings, or include photographs throughout the booklet. Adopt a Tree booklet
- We All Need Trees These "Tree Treasure Cards" can be used as part of this activity by hole-punching the top of the cards and threading with yarn to make necklaces. Students can play a game of 20 Questions while they try to determine what product is on their back. Cards can also be displayed in the classroom. English and Spanish version. Scroll down to the Trees and Me guide section for the early childhood version with pictures on leaves. English Version Spanish Version Four per Page
- Water Wonders This is a listing of the 'journey' possibilities the student page for the activity. You can cut these slips apart and to use in the activity if you have students move from station to station. Live in Raleigh? Try out this Raleigh-based version of the activity or create your own for your watershed!
- Web of Life Basic cards for a North Carolina based food chain. Copy cards front to back, hole-punch, and thread with yarn to make necklaces. Pictures cut from magazines or printed from the internet can be added by students!
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle This activity was adapted from a lesson at Blue Jay Point, a Wake County Park, and includes composting. So instead of collecting "clean" garbage, you can use these activity cards. For information about school recycling in North Carolina, please visit the NCDENR Environmental Assistance and Customer Service School Recycling web site. Along those same lines is a Composting Presentation originally created by Bianca Howard, City of Raleigh Solid Waste Services Educator, and Jodi Riedel, Horticulture Teacher at Wakefield High School.
- The Global Climate Mauna Loa data in an Excel sheet format for easy distribution to student groups or to explore graphs and data visualizations in Excel. If you want groups of students to create their own graphs, here is a formatted graph template.
Trees and Me (early childhood)
- Activity #1, The Shape of Things These shape cards have been made to help with the math/manipulative part of the activity if you set up a station of making twig shapes.
- Activity #8, My Tree and Me This workbook can be used in pieces or all together to help young children explore interesting trees around them.
- Activity #12, Three Cheers for Trees Pre-made "tree product leaves" for the featured experience of decorating trees. Even includes some blank leaves so students can cut pictures from magazines and create their own leaves! Also provided is the Goods From the Woods activity from the NC Forestry Association. This activity introduces wood chemicals used in many everyday products.
- Nature Journals Our friend Rob with Arkansas PLT put together these great ideas for easy nature journals. Simple Nature Journals Paper Bag Nature Journals Index Card Nature Journals
PreK-8 Activity Guide (2006-2020, orange cover)
- Activity #11, Can it be Real? North Carolina has some pretty fascinating plants and animals! These are descriptions of some of our native plants and animals.
- Activity #52, A Look at Aluminum The student page has been simplified and students must try to put the steps in the correct order.
- Activity #80, Nothing Succeeds Like Succession The student page story has Sara and John living in a forest typical of the northwestern United States. The story has been modified to a more typical succession story for North Carolina.
Secondary Modules and Other High School Information
Southeastern Forests and Climate Change
Remember, you can access this entire module for free online, just create an account!- Activity #8, Counting Carbon, simplified worksheet (English units)
- The Global Climate (from the K-8 Guide and Carbon and Climate eUnit) Mauna Loa data carbon dioxide data in an Excel sheet format for easy distribution to student groups or to explore graphs and data visualizations in Excel. If you want groups of students to create their own graphs, here is a formatted graph template.
Forests of the World Secondary Module
- The World Forest Tour cards have been modified to remove the pictures. Students have to think which category their statement falls into (and it could be more than one).
Places We Live Secondary Module
Activity #3, Mapping Your Community Through Time, is enhanced with the use of local aerial photos that are the same scale and show changes of an area over a range of years. These can sometimes be hard to come by. Deborah Robertson, Former Park Manager at Blue Jay Point County Park in Wake County and NC PLT Facilitator, shared these photos that she used in workshops. BJP=Blue Jay Point County Park and LCCP=Lake Crabtree County Park. These photos, though maybe not local to you, work very well for this activity.
Map of North Carolina Forest types, April 2009. This is a scale-able pdf, so it will print out larger than 8.5 x 11 if you aren't careful with your print settings.
Other Information
Linking PLT Activities and the Master Gardener Program This handout represents some of the PLT activities that relate directly with Master Gardeners and the Junior Master Gardener Program.
PLT Correlations to Outdoor Resources
Already have a nature trail or butterfly garden on your school grounds? Use this publication to see which PLT Activities can be used with schoolyard resources!
Classroom Activities from the North Carolina Forestry Association
Activities include How Big is Your Tree, Papermaking, A Day Without Forest Products, Ecology, Silviculture, and more.
Ultimate Tree Ring Web Page is from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information with links to more resources.
Virginia Tech Virtual Forest
4-H Virtual Forest provides youth with an interactive Web-based learning experience that introduces the concepts of forest management to young people age 9 -13. Learning modules complement 4-H experiential techniques and are consistent with the Standards of Learning for Virginia public schools.
Leaf Snap
A free mobile app that uses visual recognition software to help identify trees by their leaves
