North Dakota - Project Learning Tree (PLT) is seeking new facilitators!
Project Learning Tree is an award-winning environmental education curriculum with resources for grades K-12, as well as early childhood and college level. PLT provides educators with peer-reviewed, award-winning curriculum materials to engage their students in learning about the environment. We show teachers how easy it is to bring environmental education into their everyday lesson plans using our hands-on, multi-disciplinary materials aligned to state and national academic standards. Our trainings also focus on developing teachers’ confidence and skills for taking students outdoors to learn.
Our facilitators bolster the North Dakota Forest Service's ability to train educators in these resources across the state. This opportunity is perfect for PreK-12 teachers, university professors (especially those teaching preservice education students), informal educators, natural resource professionals, and leaders who work with kids, who want to help others learn how to bring environmental education into the classroom.
As a facilitator for Project Learning Tree (PLT) North Dakota, you will have the opportunity to:
- Teach professional adults about forestry education and motivate them to use forests as a focus for teaching students
- Contribute to your community's understanding of forests and forest related issues
- Gain hands-on experience teaching adults in a supportive learning environment
- Attend on-going training sessions to learn new skills in forestry education, communication, and field techniques
- Become an integral part of an international network of professionals in the fields of forestry, natural resources, education and interpretation
- Explore parks, forests, tree farms, arboretums, and other interesting places in your community
What is expected of an PLT facilitator?
- A dedication to an unbiased approach to forestry and natural resource education
- A desire to utilize your skills and experience to further forestry and natural resource education efforts in North Dakota
- A willingness to learn and apply new skills gained by attending ongoing training sessions
- A commitment to conduct at least one Project Learning Tree workshop within the calendar year
Explore some of the resource our facilitators can deliver training on by clicking the image above! We have resources for audiences who work with PreK
through college age.
What will you do as an PLT facilitator? 
A facilitator serves as a guide, helping workshop participants gain a better understanding about the PLT program, its methodologies, and potential impacts on children's environmental awareness and understanding. As a facilitator, you set the stage for learning and encourage participants to explore and develop as professionals. Your role is to help people feel comfortable in the group, to listen as much or more than you talk, and to help others understand what they have learned.
A PLT workshop facilitator must put his or her biases and interests aside. This is admittedly difficult because many of the issues we talk about and many of the PLT activities we work with touch meaningful aspects in our own lives. It is important that you help participants make their own observations, interpretations, and conclusions and to assist them in discovering the potential PLT holds for them as educators.
The workshop format should show school teachers how to use PLT to teach science, math, language arts, social sciences, art, health and physical education. Non-school educators such as outdoor school teachers, interpreters, or youth organization leaders should be shown how PLT can be used to enhance or compliment their work with both children and adults.
The North Dakota Forest Service provides any guides needed for a workshop at no cost to the facilitator. We can also provide materials, resources, and funding for workshops if they are needed. Facilitators must submit their participant evaluations after the completion of the workshop to receive educator certificates. NDFS staff also offer to co-host workshops with facilitators, if needed or desired, especially within a facilitator's first year.
Educator vs. Facilitator: What's the Difference?
A PLT Educator is someone who attends a training or workshop and becomes certified to use PLT with their students. Upon completion of their training, they are equipped to teach about environmental education by using the skills and activities within PLT with their students.
A PLT Facilitator is an educator who wants to take it one step further. Facilitators attend a specialized training that equips them to deliver PLT training to other educators. In North Dakota, this can look like university professors who train their preservice education or natural resource students in PLT, in the hopes the students will use it once they enter the workforce. This can be natural resource professionals and informal educators who train their colleagues who work with youth audiences. This could be traditional K-12 educators or administrators who want to help get PLT into the hands of teachers in their school or school district, by offering trainings as professional development. This could even be a retired teacher who still wants to be active in environmental education, offering PLT trainings as professional development to their peers. We welcome everyone who wants to be a facilitator!
