Education Resources
Education

Learning Kits

The Chippewa National Forest has four Forest themes and five fantastic learning kits which focus on area resources, including Lakes/Wetlands, Heritage, Ecosystems, Eagles and Wolves.

Learning Kits are available "FREE" to teachers and community leaders.  The kits are designed for preschool to 6th grade learning levels, though adults can learn as much from the activities as the kids!   Need to brush up on your amphibian and reptile facts?  Check out the Amphibian Trivia game.  Looking for a fun activity for 1st graders?  How about a puppet show featuring bog plants, wolves and fast moving arctic shrews?

Learning kits are stored at the Forest Supervisor's Office in Cass Lake, and can be borrowed, free of charge, for up to two weeks at a time.   Because some items in the kits are fragile, arrangements must be made to pick up the kits at the Cass Lake office.  They cannot be sent through the mail.  Educators may borrow the whole kit or just certain stations from the kit.  A sampling of the kits is listed below:

• Lakes and Wetlands:
  Amphibia Trivia, Aquatic Field Study Kit, Habitat Scrapbook, Wetland Puppets, Wetland Metaphor Activity, Underground Water Model, Path of the Glaciers, Making Tracks (Aquatic Wildlife), Dragonfly Pond Learning Activity.
• Bald Eagle:
  Eagle Glider, Eagle Dress-Up Kit, Eagle/Osprey Puppets, Eagle Eyes, Eagles of the World Game, Bird Beaks and Bird Feets!, Eagle Video "Legend of the Eagle".
• Ecosystems:
  Population Game, Deadly Links Game, "A Day of Bog Life" puppet show, Mother Nature's Medicine Chest, Goblin Fern Hunt, A Hike through the Ecosystem Jungle (Field Hike), Migration Headache Game, Grandfather Tree Story, GeoSafari Computer Game.
• Heritage:
  Arts (Pictographs, Prehistoric Pottery, Winter counts, Birchbark, Fabric Arts) Games (Atlatl, Dancin' Dan, Dice Games, LaCrosse, Baseball) Cooking (Recipes for wild game and wild foods, Depression Era Cooking, Cookshack Cooking) Tools (Flintknapping, Basswood Twining, Cross-cut saw)  Music:  jaw harp, small flute, drum, accordion, harmonica, small tape players and wide variety of cassette tapes with natural sounds, pow wow music, flute music and logging camp tunes).  Various Heritage Curriculum.
• Wolf  Kit:
  Scents, Tracks, Body Language puppet, Wolf Tape, Wolf Video, Furs, Detective Lupus activity, Scat-ology, Predator Prey Games, Skulls, Wolf Survival (This is a kit developed by the MN DNR).
• Fire Mini-Learning Kit: 
  Fire Puppet Show, Smokey Bear BackPack with activities, Fire GeoSafari, DNR Videos and Activity Lessons.

Audio Visual Resources (Audio Visual List)

Looking for some additional resources to boost your lesson plan?  Not only do we have great people resources on the Forest, but also an impressive list of audio visual resources available, free of charge.   Over 50 book titles and 90 videos are available free of charge for up to two weeks at a time.   Also available are  environmental education curriculums, including Project Wild, Learning Tree, Aquatic, National Park Service BioDiversity... the list goes on.    All our resources focus around the four Forest themes of Lakes and Wetlands, Ecosystems, Bald Eagles, and Heritage.  For more information contact Mary Nordeen, Public Affairs Specialist at 218-335-8658.