History of Recreation

Recreational use of forests I believe is closely connected with the standard of living, leisure time etc. What are the opportunities to develop lesson plans for different age group with this topic?

Here is some information on the Emergence of of Outdoor Recreation:

In the late 19th century, industrial development and urban growth transformed the US. With increasing numbers living in urban areas, the benefits associated with the natural environment achieved greater recognition. National publications highlighted the numerous outdoor sites and natural landscape available and promoted tourism for those desiring to escape city life.

By 1910, Forest Service began to give recreation greater priority. Between 1901 and 1910, a dramatic increase in Forest Service's landholdings occurred, many near large population centers. As a result city dwellers increasingly turned to nearby forests for recreation. Equally important the workers had more leisure time (because of reduced hours of work), the popularity of the automobile and increased road access and trails to forest areas were soon used as recreational roadways for fishing, hunting and camping.

OK Lets See If We Can Get Going

First off a quick thank you to those who have posted thier introductions.

Now I'd like to see if we can get a discussion going. Some of you may know that here in a couple of weeks I am doing a 50 minute presentation and workshop for social studies teachers at the annual Montana Educators Association conference in Helena, Montana. I would like to see If we can generate at least one fruitful discussion on this blog that I can show them as a way to recruit a few into this effort.

On that note, the first thing I though we could do is knock some ideas around about what kinds of products a museum education program could provide to teachers (History, Government, English, Art, ect.) beyond the typical lesson plans.

In order to respond: If you have extensive comments go ahead and make a new post
If you have a brief response go ahead and simply make a comment. If you go to the bottom of the post and click on comments you will be able to post comments that are attached to the above post.

Profile/Introduction

I'm a 68-year old retired English teacher and children's summer camp owner/director living in Windham, Vermont, living with my wife on 100 acres of forest, fields, ledge, and swamp. We're getting ready to harvest about 90,000 board feet of northern white pine, a project which makes us somewhat nervous because we're mighty inexperienced with logging. I have a part-time day job driving our town's school bus, and we both sing in a community chorus in Brattleboro, 45 minutes away. We have a son (Boulder, CO) and twin daughters (Martha's Vineyard, MA, and Santa Rosa, CA) as well as five grandchildren.

I'm a Vietnam vet discharged in 1969 from the Navy as a LT(jg). Since then I've been in education in one form or another: community college teaching in California (Bay Area, Lake Tahoe, Mt. Shasta) as well as Humboldt State; school administration and fund raising in New Hampshire and Vermont; and eight years teaching abroad in Turkey, South Korea, Japan, and Oman. For eleven years during the '70s, my wife and I owned and directed Plantation Camp which educated 180 children on 500 acres in northern California for nine weeks each summer.

We both have a special interest in this project because we've known Matt Bacon since birth: he's my wife's nephew.