In Trees We Trust: Local Students Put Down Roots

By Lorrie Ham

After students, staff and volunteers spent the day planting trees and installing benches last week, Superintendent Kevin Borg and Assistant Superintendent Mark Femrite ceremoniously cut the red ribbon to open the new outdoor classroom at Hilltop Primary School in Mound.

KARE-11 news reporter and anchor Kim Insley came out in the morning to shoot a “What’s Cool in Your School” segment for the station’s morning show. It is scheduled to air Nov. 3 at 6:15 a.m. and possibly again that afternoon at 4 p.m. It will also be available to view on the station’s website.

With the help of parent John Lloyd, Hilltop Primary School applied for a Tree Trust grant last year and was chosen as one of four schools to receive a grant worth about $10,000 in materials and labor.

The project was going to require a lot of work, and everyone in the school would be participating.

So a little training was in order.

The week prior to planting day, the Tree Trust had a five-station classroom set up at Hilltop. The overall theme was about trees, of course, but the stations included the concepts of shading to conserve energy, erosion protection, the ecology in forests and trees in the urban setting.  

All of the students had a 30-minute lesson at this classroom and then visited it again later in the week with their teacher. The fourth-graders even taught their kindergarten buddies about the tree stations. Each class knew ahead of time what type of tree they were going to be planting so the kids could research their tree. Some classes even named their tree.

The grant provided 19 trees (one for each classroom), 10 benches for an outdoor classroom, the design and planning of the tree plantings and the mulch for the trees when installed. They also partnered with Centerpoint Energy to have volunteers to help install the benches and pre-dig the holes for the trees.

The Friday before planting day, Centerpoint came out with their trucks and drilled the holes for the trees and benches at the classroom, but then also filled the holes back in. On Monday, each classroom was divided into planting teams: diggers, planters, mulchers and waterers. This gave all the kids a responsibility in the planting of their class tree and invested them in the process. Tree Trust volunteers led the planting and talked about each specific tree, how to plant a tree correctly and the steps required to take care of it.

“If it is anything like our other two outdoor classrooms, it will be used quite a bit, even in the winter,” said Mike Wallace, Hilltop’s Environmental Education Liaison.

Later in the day after the planting was done, the students gathered in their new outdoor classroom and cheered as the ribbon was cut. After all, what’s not to like about having class outside?