NEWS FROM THE FOREST

Visitor Hours

Mid-March through Mid-November

8:00a.m. to 5:00p.m.

Monday through Friday

Saturdays by request

4803 Sweet Home Church Rd.

Elizabethtown, NC 28337

(910) 588-4161

turnbullcreekesf.ncfs@ncagr.gov

In This Issue

Welcome to our new

newsletter!

The outdoor class-

room

Birds galore!

Let’s go Geocaching!

Events @ TCESF

Our Welcome Sign on Sweet Home Church Road

Greetings from Turnbull Creek! This August, Turnbull Creek Educational State Forest (TCESF) is launch-ing its first newsletter called “News from the Forest.” In this newsletter, we will be letting our forest fans know about all the happenings at TCESF, what upcoming events we have planned, and much, much, more.

Happenings

So many great things have been happening at Turnbull Creek this sum-mer. Clarkton’s Pack 512 Cub Scouts came to visit one Saturday in June to learn about tree identification and animal furs and skulls. TCESF staff made birdhouses and placed them in the forest (more about that on page 3). Improvements have been made to the Turnbull Creek Trail and Long Trail. TCESF staff participated in the fantastic week-long Investigating Your Environment teacher workshop at the N.C. Forest Service Mountain Training Facility in Crossnore. Everyone had a blast learning about innovative activities for teaching lessons about our environment! We purchased a new “smart” television which will run a looping presentation about what goes on at the forest and will provide training opportunities for N.C. Forest Service staff. Come on in to the office and check it out!

Welcome Ranger Carrie Harmon!

Ranger Carrie Harmon recently joined TCESF staff as the new Education

Ranger! Be sure to stop by and say hello!

TCESF Newsletter SUMMER 2015

What TCESF can offer YOU! The forest is a wonderful place for fun and exciting learning opportunities. Ranger

Meggs and Ranger Harmon are standing at the ready to guide you and your group

through the forest to learn what a working forest is all about!

We offer a variety of different forest-related educational programs, many that corre-

late with the North Carolina Standards of the Common Core (previously, classes fit

the State Department of Public Instruction’s Curriculum Guide). No group is too large

or too small to provide a class, so call in and schedule yours today! Here at the Forest

we are all about hands-on learning, getting students out of the classroom and into the

environment, and learning about the world around them.

Exhibits and Trails Apart from our scheduled classes, the forest has self-guided exhibits and trails that

can be viewed or walked at any time during normal business hours. Our exhibits in-

clude: Naval Stores, the Fire Protection Exhibit, and the Forest Products Exhibit. They

all have signs or voice boxes that teach you about what each exhibit contains. Our

historical Naval Stores exhibit fits in nicely with the Fourth Grade North Carolina So-

cial Studies Program. It teaches students the significance of tar, pitch, and turpentine

production to our early colonial ancestors. It also teaches about the importance of

longleaf pine to this geographical area.

We also have two scenic trails: the Turnbull Creek Talking Tree Trail (1/4 Mile long)

and the Long Trail, which is an expansive 4.5 miles long! The Talking Tree Trail has

voice boxes that describe different aspects of the forest, and some of the trees have

flip signs on them for identification. See if you can spot all of them! The Long Trail

offers a hike around the majority of Turnbull Creek Educational State Forest. It’s a

good opportunity to spot wildlife, particularly the Red Cockaded Woodpecker, an en-

dangered species!

Listed Environmental Education Center TCESF provides teacher workshops such as Project Learning Tree, among others, in

order to assist teachers in completing some components of the Environmental Educa-

tion Certification Program. We have an upcoming PLT K-8 program in September.

The Outdoor Classroom Programs we offer:

Tree Rings

New Forests for Wildlife

Predators and Their Prey

True Story of Smokey Bear

How Paper Comes from

Trees

Fire Control

Naval Stores

Out of Place

Turnbull Creek Trail

Skins and Skulls

Call ahead to schedule a class.

Classes usually run 30 minutes

in length, but can be adjusted

Authentic Turpentine Still

Huey UH-1B Helicopter in Fire Protection Exhibit

Additional Offerings at

TCESF

Picnic Shelter with

electricity

Picnic Tables

Public Bathroom

facilities

Mountain-to-Sea Trail

North Carolina

Birding Trail

Lottery Permit Youth

Hunting opportunities

for one turkey season

and two deer season

hunts. (through NC

WRC)

Scout Projects

Senior Projects

Want to know more?

Call or email the TCESF

Rangers today!

Two Eastern Bluebird Fledglings huddled together in a new birdhouse

Birds Galore! In an effort to bring more feathered friends to TCESF, we made

about 20 Eastern Bluebird houses and placed them all over the forest!

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology website has a NestWatch program

where citizen scientists can monitor nests and report their findings.

Not all of the houses have had success yet, but this one next to the

Forest Products Exhibit surely has! So far this year, we have had

counts of at least 11 nesting attempts and 34 total eggs in our bird-

houses.

Where do we go from here? We are interested in also putting up a few

Wood Duck boxes, as well as birdhouses for other species of birds

such as the Great Crested Flycatcher, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Pileat-

ed Woodpecker, and Great Horned Owl. Interested in participating in

the NestWatch program yourself ? Log on to nestwatch.org to get

started today!

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker

Upcoming Events

September 1st: Applica-

tion Deadline for Permit

Only Deer Hunts (Oct 8-10

and Oct 22-24)— Apply

through NC WRC

September 24th: Project

Learning Tree K-8

Teacher Workshop:

9a.m. to 4p.m.

Call or email TCESF for

details and to register.

Let’s Go Geocaching! In the next month or so we will be launching a new Geocaching project

here at the forest. Ranger Harmon is an avid Geocacher, and will get to

combine her love of the game with her love of Turnbull Creek Educational

State Forest. “The goal of our new Geocaching project is to make learning

about the forest a fun adventure,” Harmon said. Geocaching is a world-

wide GPS game where players log on to www.geocaching.com and

search for caches in their area. Using the provided GPS coordinates, the

players venture out in search of the cache locations. Caches can be phys-

ical boxes, tubes, or containers of all shapes and sizes, and often have

“geo-swag” inside– collectable items that can be taken (as long as you

replace the items with other items). Some of these items can be tracked

on geocaching.com, and are called “trackables” or “travel bugs” or

“geocoins.” We’ve even found Smokey Bear themed geocoins and will be

placing them in the caches! Each Geocache will highlight different

elements of TCESF, whether it be the ecosystem, Forest Service related

information, the Mountains to Sea Trail, and many others. For more infor-

mation on the game of Geocaching, please visit www.geocaching.com. To

find our Geocaches, search for username “TCESF” or type in our zip code

(28337). **Please respect the rules and regulations of Geocaching, as

well as our forest open season and hours of operation.**

Turnbull Creek Educational State Forest

4803 Sweet Home Church Road

Elizabethtown, NC 28337

PLACE STAMP HERE

Outdoor Education Made Fun!