If an 80-foot-high sugar maple falls in the forest … will a group of teachers be able to predict its trajectory?

Twenty teachers from all over the state accepted the challenge Wednesday as part of their Forests of Maine Teachers’ Tour, sponsored by various nonprofit forestry groups.

They toured a computerized sawmill, learned about forest ecology and saw hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of heavy machinery slicing trunks, stripping branches and stacking logs.

Despite armies of skidders, feller bunchers and all manner of equipment used by loggers, a lone tree sometimes will need personal attention and on-the-fly geometry, explained Mike St. Peter of Certified Professional Logging in Jackman.

So the 20 tromped into the woods of Bowdoin College Grant West, a chunk of Piscataquis County real estate northwest of Dover-Foxcroft. They climbed over a small clear-cut to see a sugar maple stretching to the sky, and Steve Lawyerson of Solon, a logging safety instructor, standing beneath it with a chain saw.

Lawyerson explained how loggers triangulate, using a stick held at arm’s length to estimate the height of the tree.

“They’re always saying, ‘When am I going to use this?'” said Melanie Landry, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade math in Glenburn, shortly before trying her hand at triangulation.

Lawyerson went on to explain how loggers estimate a tree’s angles and how they cut notches into the trunk or insert plastic wedges to shift its weight and make the half-ton tree fall exactly where they want it.

“It’s important that he has all the physics resolved before he fells the tree,” St. Peter said.

A few ax chops later, the tree creaked and wobbled and plunged to the ground exactly where Lawyerson had forecast.

“The kids need to see this. They need to come out and see how the trees come down and how the forests are managed,” Landry said.

Mathematics instruction, particularly with today’s emphasis on applied learning, is in need of real-life examples like this, she said.

In fact, the full seventh- and eighth-grade faculty from Glenburn attended this week’s tour in hopes of developing a cooperative unit focused on Maine’s forests that will get pupils out of the classroom and into the real world.

“Glenburn is a rural school – why not take advantage of it?” said Larry Puls, who teaches social studies.

To help the teachers incorporate forestry into their curriculum, Maine Project Learning Tree, the state arm of a national forestry education group, also provided classroom materials and manuals that tie activities to Maine Learning Results, the new state curriculum standard.

Linda Vitale, a sixth-grade teacher in Albion who is married to a forester, has been teaching a hands-on forestry unit for years, she said.

“There’s so much curriculum now that if you don’t integrate, you can’t teach it all,” Vitale said. “I bring in math, science, Maine history, writing. … There’s nothing you can’t do with it.”

That’s precisely what Sherry Huber, executive director of the Maine Tree Foundation, likes to hear.

“This is something that most of them had never seen before. Now they’re immersed,” Huber said.

Frequently, teachers tell Huber that regardless of their political inclinations, they had no concept of the level of technology used in forest industries, and little understanding of the ecology of the Maine woods.

The teacher tours are designed to fulfill the mission of the Maine Tree Foundation, which focuses on sustainable forestry and multiuse forest management – both in promoting “responsible” forestry to the public and in providing resources to help industry improve. It is decidedly an industry-friendly viewpoint, but with a focus on the status quo that state regulators, most forestry companies and mainstream environmental groups have agreed upon.

Still, some environmentalists have criticized the program, arguing that it’s more about indoctrination than education.

And indeed, last week’s tour did not address environmentalists’ ongoing criticism of some forest practices.

For example, a discussion Wednesday of third-party forest certification was more a defense of the industry-favored Sustainable Forestry Initiative than a balanced consideration of the faults and benefits of the several different systems available.

But the tour did not discuss some forestry companies’ complaints about existing environmental laws, either.

If a politically charged issue is raised – for example, Roxanne Quimby’s recent purchase of a township near Baxter State Park and her intention to eventually donate the land to a new national park in northern Maine – it is discussed and debated, Huber said.

“We bring in other points of view, and nobody dodges any questions,” she said. “[But] I see no benefit in bringing in the really extreme viewpoint, because it really isn’t very accurate.”

Huber tells the story of a participant who wrote to say that her mind wasn’t changed about clear-cutting, but that she appreciated seeing the practice for herself and hearing foresters’ perspectives.

Answers like that are why Paul Davis, senior resource manager for Plum Creek Timber Co. in Maine, spent Wednesday leading teachers across his company’s land.

“The more people understand what we do and what’s really happening out here, instead of just the rhetoric, the better it is,” he said.

Two additional Forests of Maine Teacher Tours are scheduled for later this summer. Some spaces are available on an Aug. 3-6 tour of the Grand Lake Region in Washington County, while many spaces remain on an Aug. 10-13 tour based around Golden Road and the Millinocket region. For information, contact the Maine Tree Foundation at 621-9872. Teaching materials are also available from Maine Project Learning Tree, at 626-7990.