This sub-organizer contains the following sections:
Prescribed Learning Outcomes
Suggested Instructional Strategies
Suggested Assessment Strategies
Recommended Learning Resources

PRESCRIBED LEARNING OUTCOMES

• define inventory
• identify a variety of resource inventories
• describe the reasons for sampling
• demonstrate awareness of the limitations of the application of sampling data
• describe the applications of timber inventory
• use measurement techniques and sampling procedures to collect inventory data
• demonstrate an ability to calculate tree volume and estimate stand volume
• apply information technology to inventory techniques and planning

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• As a class, create a web chart based on the term inventory&nsbp;. Ask students to suggest relationships between elements (e.g., species-health, volume, value; forage-abundance, availability, diversity). Discuss the difference between statistical and anecdotal inventory.
• To introduce sampling, ask students to imagine how many trees there are in the province. Ask them how they would go about counting all the trees (or all the water, fish, and so on). Explain how sampling is used. As an extension, students can investigate the use of sampling and statistics in other fields (e.g., market surveys, public-opinion polls, insurance actuarials).
• Have students investigate a variety of forest inventory methodologies that are used in British Columbia (e.g., vegetation resources inventory, terrestrial ecosystems mapping, fish and fish habitat inventory, soils inventory, small mammals inventory). In pairs, have students each select one inventory and describe its sampling methodology, rationale, and potential use.
• Challenge students to investigate how the long-term harvest level was calculated and allowable annual cut determined for a local timber supply area or tree farm licence. As a class, discuss the ways in which inventory data are used in calculating long-term harvest levels.

SUGGESTED ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

• Have students create mind maps at the beginning and end of a focus on resource inventory. Assess the extent to which they have expanded their understanding by asking questions such as:
  • Was prior information incomplete or incorrect? If so, why? How could this incomplete or incorrect information influence a resource inventory?
  • What topics were difficult for you? What did you do to overcome these difficulties?
• To check students' approaches to solving problems such as planning a timber inventory or calculating the volume of a tree or stand, ask them to:
  • describe the problem in their own words
  • explain the processes used to find answers
  • describe alternative problem-solving methods
• Invite students to create resource or timber inventory handbooks. During field studies and classroom activities, ask them to add definitions, notes about inventory techniques and tools, equations, and reminders about how to calculate tree and stand volumes. As well, ask students to include insights gained through various learning experiences. Assess their handbooks periodically to determine:
  • level of detail included and accuracy
  • topic areas needing review or repeated instruction
  • depth of insights and personal connections made through class and field studies
• Assign questions asking students to determine stand volumes. Look for:
  • appropriateness of procedures used
  • accuracy of calculations
  • awareness of factors that could affect their estimates

• Forest Practices Code Guidebooks
• Seeing the Forest Among the Trees
• Wildwood: A Forest for the Future, Second Edition

• Pruning Second Growth Stands

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