Blog submitted by Paul Johnson.
The Texas A&M Forest Service (TFS)'s bilingual education initiative continues to expand throughout the state. In 2014, TFS held the 5th Annual Bilingual Tree Worker Training in San Antonio, the 3rd annual Spanish language tree school at the Texas Tree Conference, and outreach in both English and Spanish to 1,500 students and teachers through Project Learning Tree.
TFS also assisted with a Spanish language newsletter article submission to the Texas Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture. This initiative builds resiliency by increasing the forestry and tree knowledge of tree workers and children by presenting information in their native language.
The San Antonio Bilingual Tree Worker Training began several years ago as an idea and has matured into a successful workshop through the partnership and collaboration of several state agencies, professional organizations, private
industry, and the USDA Forest Service. Its success best represents the continued growth of the TFS bilingual education initiative.
Program highlights include:
- More than 200 people attended the 2014 workshop, including 190 paid attendees and about 20 additional volunteers and speakers from McCoy Tree Care, Asplundh, and San Antonio Arborist Association.
- Indoor morning sessions were conducted concurrently in English and Spanish and topics included
- COSA Tree Rules by Mark Bird and Armando Cortez- City of San Antonio
- Professionalism by Paul Johnson-Texas A&M Forest Service, Fernando Figueroa-Curv Appeal
- Common Tree Defects by Eduardo Medina- Davey Tree, David Vaughan- Etter Tree Care
- Accident Prevention (Spanish Track) Patty Charqueno- McCoy Tree Surgery
- Pruning and Oak Wilt (English Track) Jim Houser Texas A&M Forest Service
- Outside Demonstrations included:
- Chipper Operations by Vermeer Equipment
- Chainsaw Safety by Tim Jackson- Davey Tree
- Pruning by Eduardo Medina- Davey Tree
- Air Spade by Jacob West- Bartlett Tree Experts
Continuing education units, lunch, and a raffle of chainsaws, climbing ropes, leaf blowers, hand pruners and other items were also included.
Learn more about Texas' forest priorities in its Forest Action Plan.
For more information about these programs contact the Texas A&M Forest Service.