 The Wood Cluster Initiative is an
effort by state economic developers, industry representatives and
educators to develop interest in and prepare students for gainful
employment or postsecondary education related to the forest and wood
industry. It begins with students' self awareness of interests and
abilities related to the industry in the lower grade levels, leads
to job and career awareness in the middle grades and finally job
preparation in the upper levels.
Initiative objectives include:
1. Making educators aware of the materials, resources, and persons
available to assist in teaching about the forest and wood industry
at all grade levels.
2. Development and dissemination of a high school curriculum that
prepares students for entering careers or postsecondary education
related to the forest and wood industry.
3. Gaining the support and assistance of industry to develop and
implement an industry-driven certification process for the forest
and wood industry.
4. Facilitating the delivery of inservice opportunities for teachers
to develop or improve their skills related to jobs in the forest and
wood industry.
5. Developing middle school curriculum that will make students aware
of the careers and opportunities available in the forest and wood
industry and provide hands-on training in some of the skills
necessary to be successful at them.
To date progress has been made on all of the above objectives except
the last. It is anticipated that with the opening of this
dissemination site that progress toward completion of these
objectives will continue at a more rapid pace.
The strength behind the accomplishments of the past four years comes
from the wide variety of participants, all with a common goal of
assisting the industry and students. The development of the high
school foundation skills curriculum is an example of this. The
identification of the competencies for the program was accomplished
with assistance from over 250 industry representatives (click
here for a summary of the needs assessment study) and a group
of 10 secondary and postsecondary instructors. The curriculum for
these competencies was written by three high school technology
education teachers, one high school vocational teacher, two high
school agriculture teachers, four college forestry faculty, and two
college construction faculty with funding provided by the
Pennsylvania Hardwoods Development Council, Pennsylvania Bureau of
Career and Technical Education, the Appalachian Regional Commission
and the U.S. Department of Labor.
Funding for the curriculum development was identified by a state
industrial resource center coordinator and the curriculum
development was facilitated by a director and curriculum specialist
of a leading technical college. It has been the recognition of all
of these partners," that this is a worth while effort," that has
made and will continue to make this initiative a strong and
effective one.
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