Dear Teacher,
We are pleased to donate this set of materials designed to help students understand more about some of our most important local ecological assets, our trees.

On behalf of Alcoa and Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, we have donated five copies of “The Trees of Pittsburgh,” a field guide of the trees of the city. In addition, we include in this packet an Activity Guide for grades 4-6, and this compact disk, developed by Western Pennsylvania Conservancy with support from Alcoa Foundation to expand on the information and the walking tours contained in “The Trees of Pittsburgh.”

This interactive CD contains the same information as the book, and organizes it into a dichotomous key, a tool that allows students to determine the identity of trees through their leaves. We’ve developed the CD as a tool for understanding the scientific process of classification, for visual learning, and for identifying leaves that either you or the students choose. It’s designed to be used by students at individual computer stations, or projected for use by the entire classroom.

The Activity Guide includes suggestions for classroom activities that can enrich your unit on trees. It offers multidisciplinary activities that cover three general subject areas: Tree Structure, Tree Mathematics, and the Benefits of Trees. Activities are geared toward students in grades 4-6. They also link to Pennsylvania Academic Standards in Environment and Ecology; Science and Technology; Mathematics; Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening; and Health, Safety and Physical Education (Proposed). The Guide includes detailed instructions on leading the activities, and activity sheets that you may freely copy to use with your students.

Alcoa and Alcoa Foundation are pleased to make this set of teaching materials available as support for your efforts in the development of youth leadership in conservation and sustainability issues. We share that goal. We do have an international focus on forest management, on both the rural and urban landscapes, and absolutely consider trees a valuable ecological asset. As part of Alcoa’s environmental strategic plan, we also sponsor a tree-planting program for all employees and their families with a goal of planting 10 million trees by 2020.

Western Pennsylvania Conservancy is committed to “Saving the Places We Care About,” and is proud to participate with Alcoa in this focus on the Trees of Pittsburgh. Western Pennsylvania Conservancy hopes that these materials stimulate your interest and concern for trees. They give us so much and they desperately need our attention.

Sincerely,