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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/46119
Partners Updates State Coordinators The Changing Face of Urban Forestry Education by Paul D. Ries, Urban and Community Forestry Program Manager for the Oregon Department of Forestry and Urban Forestry Instructor and Extension Specialist in the Oregon State University College of Forestry T he ranks of today's municipal urban foresters are populated with a diverse array of professionals with varied educational backgrounds. Most municipal urban foresters received college degrees in something other than urban forestry, such as horticulture, urban planning, parks and recreation, or forestry. Others are graduates of the "school of hard-knocks" who picked up continuing education opportunities throughout their careers. But regardless of their educational background, all municipal foresters are witnessing a revolution in the way urban forestry education is being delivered. With the advent of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) Certified Arborist program in the early 1990s, urban foresters began flocking to continu- ing education courses like never before. Seminars, short courses, and workshops joined traditional confer- ence offerings as ISA chapters and groups like SMA scrambled to provide continuing education credits. As time and technology have progressed, these place- based continuing education opportunities are being supplemented by, and sometimes supplanted by, online offerings. Every year, new educational opportunities are cropping up in an online form. In the northeast U.S., David Bloniarz of the USDA Forest Service has been offering monthly webinars through the Urban Natural Resources Institute. These one-hour educational modules feature one or more urban forestry professionals presenting on a specific urban forestry topic, followed by the opportunity for participants to take a short quiz on the content in order to receive con- tinuing education credit. "Web-based presentations provide a great opportunity to utilize new technologies to reach audiences that oth- erwise might not be able to attend educational sessions due to budget considerations, time constraints, or travel constraints," says Bloniarz. "This technology enables real-time, interactive dialog with attendees, providing a similar forum for educational programming as in-person attendance at a lecture or presentation." At the college level, urban forestry education is headed online as well. Oregon State University (OSU) has three online urban forestry courses: an introductory course, 34 an advanced planning, policy, and management course, and an arboriculture course. The introductory was the first to go online, and it remains the most popular, attracting about 30 students each term from around the world. OSU will soon unveil an online Bachelor's Degree in Natural Resources with a major option in Urban Forest Landscapes. "Online learning is the fastest-growing stu- dent body at our university," observed OSU Vice Provost for Outreach and Engagement Dr. Scott Reed. Research indicates that one in four college students has taken at least one course online. Not all urban forestry content is being transferred from place-based to online delivery, however; there is a middle ground being broken. In the Pacific Northwest, urban foresters are developing a "hybrid" version of the Community Tree Management Institute (CTMI)—part online, part place-based. The CTMI course is a yearlong training for municipal employees who have tree respon- sibilities but not necessarily the titles of municipal arborist or city forester. "CTMI is a model educational offering with a long his- tory as a place-based course," reports course organizer Sarah Foster of the Washington Department of Natural Resources Urban Forestry program. "The 2012 version will include an online component for 70% of the materi- al; instead of four or five placed-based sessions, course participants will meet face-to-face twice and take part in three six-week online sessions." CTMI planners expect that the online version will be generic enough for any state in the U.S. to utilize and pair with their own region- al place-based sessions to complete the course. "Members of an increasingly fast-paced society, espe- cially the Millennial Generation, depend upon acces- sible information to help them solve problems, manage resources, and develop leadership," concludes OSU's Dr. Reed. "In this way, learning is unbound by space and time, and unlike rigid courses, online learning can be paced with separable modules indexed to each person's needs." Like the importance of species diversity in the urban forest itself, this diversity of learning delivery will pay great dividends in the coming years. City Trees