4D: From the Ground Up: Essential Training at USU’s T.W. Daniel Experimental Forest

For the better part of a century, students, researchers, and professionals have visited the T.W. Daniel Experimental Forest to learn essential skills for monitoring and managing Utah forests, range, and wildlife. The forest was purchased by Utah State University in 1936 and commenced with forestry camps in 1947. The so-called School Forest has been woven into the tapestry of
natural resources training and professional learning in northern Utah for 75 years. Located less than an hour from the Logan campus in the Bear River range, activities on the School Forest are administered through a long-standing cooperative agreement with the Uinta- Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Logan Ranger District.

In 1947, Utah State University faculty member Theodore W. ”Doc” Daniel, initiated a cone monitoring project that launched long-term research activity on the forest. Since then, hundreds of projects, publications, theses, demonstrations, and dissertations have resulted from the work conducted on this important piece of wildland. Long-term monitoring plots on the forest represent data collection efforts spanning decades, something only possible through stable, continued commitment and a successful transfer of knowledge through leadership of the historic resource. Dr. Justin DeRose, a Utah State University associate professor who is currently the liaison
for the School Forest, manages projects that measure forest growth response to silvicultural treatments and monitor changing conditions over the long term.

Multiple, ongoing research projects document forest change over time, and demonstration management trials showcase how to successfully manage Utah’s forest for adaptation to climate, fire, and changing conditions of the future. The unique opportunity to bring students to the site to experience hands-on and locally based research and demonstration projects arms them with tools and experience necessary to understand evolving issues forests will inevitably face in a complex environmental future.