Our middle school experiential learning opportunities allow older students to experience what it is like to design and conduct a research experiment. Starting in 2024, we have engaged with 8th grade students from Tucker County Elementary Middle School to learn about the science that is happening in their own backyard at the Fernow Experimental Forest in Parsons, WV as part of a NSF funded project in collaboration with the Northern Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service. Here, we work with students to set up a long-term leaf litter decomposition experiment to examine how the legacy of acid rain at the site impacts the amount of soil carbon forests can store. Each year, the next cohort of students will make new litter decomposition bags and get to analyze the data from the previous year to produce their own long-term data record. This effort aims to empower these students as stewards of important data on how their local forests are changing through time!