Coordinating forest management across thousands of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners is a difficult yet necessary task for state land management agencies. Voluntary Incentive Programs (VIPs) can coordinate the decentralized activities of these owners in return for services or financial incentives. However, many VIPs typically have low enrollment. Our study investigates the implementation of VIPs to increase forest management coordination among NIPFs in Michigan. We present findings from 20 semi-structured interviews with leaders of state and local land management organizations, and government officials at state natural resource agencies, and contrast their answers with those recorded from 37 interviews of NIPF owners regarding their knowledge and attitudes toward VIPs. Our interviews highlight a critical disconnect between NIPF owner motivations and VIP incentives, as well as misallocated resources for VIP promotion by state agencies, driving low enrollment. At the core, low enrollment in VIPs is generated by inadequate communication between NIPF owners and program managers, along with distrust of government agency objectives. Viewing managers as “street level bureaucrats”, civil servants whose job discretion is impacted heavily by available resources, may increase our understanding of the issues plaguing VIPs and help identify improvements to VIP design and implementation.

To address the lack of a classroom observation protocol aligned with integrated STEM, the author team developed one to measure the degree of integrated STEM instruction implemented in K-12 science and engineering classrooms. This study demonstrates how our instrument can be used to uncover the dimensions of integrated STEM instruction practiced in K-12 classrooms and to determine which protocol items are associated with each of these dimensions. This article reports on the results of a principal component analysis (PCA) using 2030 K-12 classroom observation videos. PCA revealed two core dimensions of integrated STEM education. Real-world problem-solving includes 21st century skills and STEM practices necessary for developing solutions to real-world problems. Nature of Integrated STEM includes items that promote integration between the real-world context, students’ personal experiences, STEM careers, and STEM content. The authors’ analysis also suggests the possibility of an additional dimension of integrated STEM involving technology practices in STEM.

Managing northern hardwood forests using high-frequency, low-intensity regimes, such as single-tree selection, favors shade-tolerant species and can reduce tree species diversity. Management decisions among family forest owners (FFO) can collectively affect species and structural diversity within northern hardwood forests at regional scales. We surveyed FFOs in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan to understand likely future use of three silvicultural treatments—single-tree selection, shelterwood, and clearcut. Our results indicate that FFOs were most likely to implement single-tree selection and least likely to implement clearcut within the next 10 years. According to logistic regression, prior use of a treatment and perceived financial benefits significantly increased the odds for likely use for all three treatments. Having received professional forestry assistance increased likely use of single-tree selection but decreased likely use of shelterwood. We discuss these results within the context of species diversity among northern hardwood forests throughout the region.