Every day of the two-week-long "Forest Conservation Days 2000," the most frequently asked question was just that: "What is a Steam Donkey?"

Over the course of two weeks each March, lucky students from the San Jose, California, area are transported to Santa Clara County's Sanborn Park for Forest Conservation Days, an annual event hosted by the Society of American Foresters (SAF) since 1992. Parents, teachers, community volunteers, and partner groups - including the Bureau of Land Management, USDA Forest Service, University of California (UC)/Berkeley, Americorps, and private organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Sierra Pacific Industries - assist the SAF in producing an engaging, educational, highly labor-intensive, and very rewarding event. Students from local school districts participate in Forest Conservation Days Monday through Friday, and Boy and Girl Scouts and the general public are encouraged to visit during the intervening weekends.

This year, as in the past, fifth-graders disembarked from their school bus and, after having been told of all the interesting things to do and see at Forest Conservation Days, lost no time in asking about the Steam Donkey. Trail Guides - foresters and other natural resource professionals who had volunteered for the duration - explained that it was a steam-powered machine that pulled logs, just as a donkey would do.

Students were officially welcomed to the park by Forester Don Gasser, and "TreeChee," a tree-costumed character. The docent accompanying TreeChee explained that TreeChee had been "topped" by a Pacific Gas & Electric employee because the tree had been growing under a powerline. Students were encouraged to always plant trees "in the right place," to enable the trees to grow freely and avoid interference with power distribution lines.

The children were then whisked away to various parts of Sanborn Park to learn about the "Web of Life." The "Web" lessons gave the students an opportunity to learn how the earth's plants and animals are interconnected. Afterwards, the kids took a half-mile-long hike through a redwood forest, and visited exhibits on wildlife, fisheries, forest products (pencils, paper, and engineered products from the Forest Products Lab at UC/Berkeley), the Steam Donkey, fire prevention, and archaeology. They also visited the park's Youth Science Institute. There, they were offered hands-on experience in the areas of Native American culture, insects, geology, and wildlife. Trail Guides stressed "Web" connections at each stop.

On the trail hike, students learned about the relationships of sun, soil, air and water to the lives of plants and animals. There were opportunities to study the effects of wildlife species on each other and on the plants that grow in the park. Other stops offered lessons on how trees grow, methods for determining the age of a tree, and the ways in which plants interact and compete for nutrients. Fire ecology was also discussed, with an emphasis on how Native Americans - specifically, the Ohlone Indians - once used fire to create better deer habitat. Nearby lay the bones of a Columbian black-tailed deer, which had been killed by a carnivore, probably a coyote.

For students and Trail Guides alike, a favorite and welcome break along the trail was a fifteen- foot-wide, rotten redwood stump. The children got a chance to do "practical research" by exploring the stump and trying to identify what had caused the tree's death. They soon discovered that it had been burned many times over the years, both as a result of natural lightning-caused fires and also because of prescribed fires by Native Americans. The tree was cut down over 130 years ago for lumber to help build the city of San Francisco. Since redwood trees can sprout from the root system of the parent tree, there are now about six large trees growing around the stump. An interesting fact the children learned was that nearly every tree in Sanborn Park was cut down over 130 years ago. Now, however, this is a beautiful redwood forest. Parents and teachers in particular are always amazed when they realize they are standing in a former clearcut, albeit some 130 years later!

At one stop on the trail, there are several interesting indicators of geologic activity; in fact, the trail is actually constructed along the San Andreas Fault line. The children were amazed to learn that they were standing on the edge between two giant pieces of the earths crust - the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate - that extended for over four thousand miles in opposite directions! Geologists have estimated that in Sanborn Park, the earth moved over sixteen feet along the San Andreas fault in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when the two plates moved under the influence of extreme pressure. Nearby evidence of that earthquake includes trees that were tilted by the movement; large amounts of clay produced from the grinding of rocks along the fault line; and a sharp turn in the nearby stream.

After the trail hike, students had an opportunity to experience how the Native Americans who once inhabited the Park - the Ohlone tribe - had lived their daily lives. At the park's Youth Sciences Institute, the children were taught that the Ohlone made their homes from pieces of redwood and hunted and gathered food in the local area. There were also exhibits on logging history, geology, and archaeology. The students' favorites, of course, were the live insects, amphibians, and reptiles that provided them a close-up look at the living world around them.

It takes over 350 volunteer person days to organize Forest Conservation Days. Each year, the event reaches about 3,600 students and approximately 1,500 parents, teachers, Boy and Girl Scouts, and members of the general public. One of the primary goals of the volunteer foresters and other resource professionals who devote so much time and effort to this event is to encourage young people to study and pursue careers in the natural resource disciplines.

*Answer to title question: The Steam Donkey is a steam-powered machine, invented by John Dolbeer in 1883, that was once used to pull logs from forests. The Donkey on display at Forest Conservation Days 2000 was loaned by the USDA Forest Service Hume Lake Ranger District to the Turtle Bay Museum in Redding, California, and borrowed for the event. The machine is believed to be approximately 110 years old. (P.S.: The pulling capacity of the Steam Donkey on display was about 100 tons . . . as far as the "tug-of-war" was concerned, the kids never really had a chance!)

For further information on the Bureau of Land Management's participation in Forest Conservation Days, please contact BLM Forester John Stewart at e-mail John_C_Stewart@blm.gov or telephone (202) 452-7761.

For more information on the Society of American Foresters (SAF), please visit the SAF website at http://www.safnet.org.