What is a School Forest?

History in WI

Wisconsin’s school forests have been getting more press lately, but their history is nearly 100 years old. Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to create a school forest program in 1928. By the 1920s, land in northern Wisconsin was over-harvested and suffered from forest fires. The land would need to be reforested quickly through conservation efforts to be of any economic use to help the communities.

Wakelin “Ranger Mac” McNeel, a state 4-H leader, was an essential advocate in implementing an idea introduced to Wisconsin by Dean Russell of the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture in the 1920's. School districts would acquire the land, and Wisconsin school children would replant the forests, becoming conservation stewards by creating a better economic and environmental future for themselves and future generations. Russell had worked on legislation in 1920's that allowed school districts to own land for school forests. This lead to the the creation of the first school forests in Forest County, projects lead by McNeel, Fred Trenk and Forest County residents. Later legislation mandated conservation education in high schools, vocational schools, colleges and universities (1935), and provided for free planting stock from state nurseries and use state foresters for the development of forest management plans (1949).