Forest Products Week edition

National Forest Products Week: October 19-25

During Forest Products Week a variety of Wisconsin organizations will open their doors for high school students to explore how forests and forest products create financial, recreational, and environmental opportunities.

Events throughout Wisconsin will give high school students a chance to learn how trees are made into paper, doors, cabinetry, and even the Bucks’ basketball court, and how world-class forest management makes it all possible.

Space is limited and registrations are filling up. Check out the Forest Products Week website to see what is still available.

Visit the 2025 Forest Products Week website

If you aren’t able to join in the tours, consider using one of the lessons available for K-12 students and this Forest Products Fact Sheet in your classroom or a local school forest.
Send us a note or picture of how you incorporated Forest Products Week into your classroom!

Fortunes swing! Brewers, bats, and Wisconsin maple!

When you think of October, it’s hard not to think about baseball. October is playoff time for Major League Baseball. Though the World Series can now sometimes extend into November, October remains baseball’s big month.

And it’s been a great October in Wisconsin as the Milwaukee Brewers entered the playoffs off a record-breaking 97-win 2025 regular season. The Brewers’ league-best record allowed them to clinch a third consecutive NL Central division title and earn home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

October is also Forest Products Month, the time of the year when we celebrate the products forests provide as well as all the people who help produce them. The wooden baseball bat is a forest product that brings these two October events face-to-face.

Baseball bats, a longtime treasured part of the game, have changed a great deal over the years, becoming smaller and lighter overall. The torpedo bat, a bat with more of a bowling pin shape, caused quite a stir early this season, though Brewer fans may wish to forget the details of that story.

In baseball’s early days, bats were made from many different types of wood, including hickory, ash, maple, willow, birch, and even pine and spruce.

The bats professional players use today are mostly made from maple, birch, or ash. The most common wood used now is sugar maple, Acer saccharum, sometimes called “rock maple” as a reference to its density.

The popularity of maple bats took off in the 2000s, thanks in no small part to Barry Bonds’ preference for maple bats. Coupled with the collapse of white ash population due to emerald ash borer over that last decade, the importance of maple has continued to grow.

Sugar maple is Wisconsin’s state tree, and they are common in the northern half of the state. A good number of baseball bats are made in factories and shops in Wisconsin each year at places like Wagner Bats in Appleton, Three Brothers Bats in West Salem, Dingbat Bats in Verona, Rally Bats in Bay City, and Lenz & Son Handbuilt Baseball Bats in Newberg. In the past these manufacturers generally imported wood, in the form of bat billets or blanks, from other states, particularly New York and Pennsylvania. In recent years, the prospects for Wisconsin maple, like the Brewers, have trended upwards.

"Northern Wisconsin and Michigan has some of the best maple in the world," said Tony Engedal, Vice President of Sales and Product Development at Great Lakes Veneer in Marion, Wisconsin.

Great Lakes Veneer has been in the baseball bat billets market for about three years, selling 200,000 maple bat billets last year. While they source some maple from the Northeast, about 70% of their maple comes from the upper Midwest, mostly from Wisconsin and Michigan.

The company has sold billets to more than 30 of the 39 licensed MLB bat manufacturers, and there are hundreds of MLB players using bats made with billets from Great Lakes Veneer. Export sales are also a growing part of the business, with customers in Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China.

Log selection and scaling

Billets rounded, trimmed, and graded
Photos courtesy of Great Lakes Veneer

Engedal projects a strong year in 2026, adding birch billets to its product line, and aiming to increase total bat billets sales to 300,000.

Go Crew! And go Wisconsin forest products!

Look at those labels

Have you ever noticed the little certification labels that are sometimes found on paper and wood products? Symbols and abbreviations that look important, but you’re not sure what they mean? These labels indicate that the product you are about to purchase is verified to come from responsible sources.

Organizations like the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) exist to support more sustainable forestry practices, and to help connect consumers to products made from sustainably managed forests.

A great deal of detail and oversight come into play before a product can get such a label—you can read more about SFI labeling here, and FSC requirements here—so it’s good to know that when you choose to purchase a product with that label, it really makes a difference.

Here’s an activity from Project Learning Tree to help you teach students about sustainable forest product certification. Other activities for out-of-class educators can be found in PLT’s “Learn About Forests” collection. Or, you can take a PLT workshop to get a copy of the Explore Your Environment guide full of lessons designed for classroom use.

Professional Development

In-Person Trainings

Math in the Forest | October 18 | Ladysmith

On-Demand Trainings

LEAF On-Demand, Online Offerings

Project Learning Tree On-Demand, Online Offerings

LAST CHANCE! ACT FAST!

Math in the Forest

9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Saturday, October 18

Ladysmith, WI

This hands-on workshop for high school math teachers focuses on outdoor applications of algebra, geometry and trigonometry. In addition to inspiring ideas, you'll also get mathematics-related lesson materials to take back to your classroom.

Fall Conference Preview

Staff from LEAF, KEEP (our partner energy education program) and the WCEE will be at two conferences this November.

The Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education (WAEE) is holding it’s annual conference from November 13-15 at Beaver Creek Reserve in Fall Creek.

Connect with us at our sessions!

Together for Birds | 9:00 – 9:45 a.m. Friday with Nicole Filizetti, LEAF
Let’s go outside and try three updated PLT activities that help elementary students learn about the world outside their door and gain understanding about the interconnectedness of nature.

Rooted in Standards: Changing Environmental Education | 10:15 – 11:00 a.m. Friday with Victoria Rydberg-Nania, WCEE

Agrivoltaics: Solar and Farming | 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Friday with Kaitlin Ripley, Wisconsin Energy Institute, and Gina Smith, WCEE

Poster Session - Skills Important to Success as Environmental Educators and Interpreters: Insights from Graduates | 5:00 p.m. Friday with Becca Franzen and Kendra Liddicoat, WCEE

Igniting Change through Climate Education | 9:00 – 9:45 a.m. Saturday with Becca Franzen and Victoria Rydberg-Nania, WCEE

Balancing Carbon Sources and Sinks: the energy + forestry equation | 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. Saturday with Nicole Filizetti, LEAF and Gina Smith, WCEE
Learn how solar energy, building efficiency, carbon cycling, urban tree canopy and sustainable forest management lessons work together to help students make sense of the big picture of climate change, while also optimizing opportunities for place-based learning.

The National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) is holding it’s national conference from November 12 - 15 in Minneapolis.

Balancing Carbon Sources and Sinks: the energy + forestry equation | 2:40 - 4:40 p.m. Friday with Steve Schmidt, LEAF, and Wendy Stelzer, KEEP
Learn how solar energy, building efficiency, carbon cycling, urban tree canopy and sustainable forest management lessons work together to help students make sense of the big picture of climate change, while also addressing middle school NGSS Performance Expectations.

World Teacher Day teacher feature - Dave Landers

October 5th was World Teachers' Day. LEAF staff were talking about the many inspiring teachers we've been lucky enough to work with over the years . While many, many names came up - and we appreciate each and every one of you - this month, we caught up with Dave Landers, a teacher at Pulaski Community Middle School, who was generous enough to share some reflections about his teaching and his connection with LEAF.

Dave Landers is a 6th grade Science teacher at Pulaski Community Middle School, where he has taught since 2005. He is also the School Forest/Outdoor Learning Coordinator for the school.

Prior to becoming a teacher, Dave was a U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighter and wilderness ranger.

"My place-based educational experiences growing up coupled with my experiences in the natural resource field were influential in my decision to be an educator and foster outdoor place-based learning with students."

Dave was co-lead of the Great Lakes Explorers group. He is a National Geographic Certified Teacher, a 2021 School Forest Award Winner, and a 2025 Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Teacher Fellow.

“Are we going outside today?” is a question I hear almost every day. The saying “Not all classrooms have four walls” lies at the heart of my teaching philosophy. Using outdoor learning areas and connecting students to both the human and natural elements of their local community through place-based learning has been a true joy-for my students and for me.

We are fortunate to have a school forest just a seven-minute walk from our school’s doors, along with many other outdoor learning spaces. These areas provide endless opportunities for students’ natural curiosity and engagement to flourish.

One highlight is our maple syrup program, where students take part in every step of the process-from tapping maple trees and collecting sap to splitting wood from the school forest and cooking the sap down into syrup. The entire operation is student-driven. The sugar shack used for cooking was built by high school students using lumber harvested from the school forest, and even the cooker and pan were student-made. Students enjoy a tasty treat of maple syrup at the end of the process.

When students form a connection to a place, they are more likely to take meaningful stewardship actions. Our district fosters additional outdoor learning opportunities, such as our fourth-grade field day. During this event, all district fourth graders learn about natural resources from resource management professionals. Another experience included mapping trees on the school grounds, identifying ash trees, and proposing remediation solutions.

These rich learning experiences and the development of our outdoor learning spaces have been made possible through a collaborative partnership with LEAF. LEAF has been an invaluable partner, offering guidance in the creation of our school forest education and natural resource plan, collaborating on field day activities, and continually supporting outdoor learning in our district and across the state.

Thanks to LEAF’s continued leadership and support, our students have opportunities to engage with their local community in meaningful ways, where their natural curiosity not only grows but thrives.

High school students apply now for Science of Tree Felling training!

The Wisconsin Forestry Center will offer its Science of Tree Felling 3-day, field-intensive chainsaw training March 20 - 22, 2026 at Treehaven, a UW-Stevens Point (UWSP) field station in Tomahawk.

High school students join UWSP forestry students and work directly with over 10 industry professionals to gain the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to safely fell, delimb and buck a tree.

By the end of the weekend, students walk away with new skills, an industry-recognized certificate from UWSP and Husqvarna, and one UWSP college credit. Note: Some asynchronous coursework is completed prior to the course to allow more time in the field.

There is only room for five high school students in the course, so apply early! Applications close Friday, November 14.

Each accepted student will receive a scholarship to cover the cost of meals and tuition. Students and their guardians are required to supply their own lodging for the weekend. Lodging and camping at Treehaven is not permitted.

Learn More about Science of Tree Felling!