MOUNT FOREST – Two Wellington Heights Secondary School (WHSS) classes got a hands-on lesson in environmental consciousness recently.
Two Grade 9 classes assisted in transplanting 80 red pine trees from a lot that will be developed and onto the school grounds.
This was kicked-off two years ago when Mount Forest trails committee member Daphne Rappard said she happened to come across a lot near WHSS when walking her dog and noticed residential development would be going in.
She recalled a nearby lot had cleared mature pine trees and wanted a different outcome for the trees on this lot.
“I thought ‘but here there’s all these hundreds of self-seeded red pines that are just a foot to probably eight or 10 feet tall,’” Rappard said. “Surely we should be able to save some of those.”
This is when she contacted Jennifer Cork, WHSS community environment leadership program teacher, to see if any of her students might be able to help save these trees.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to build relationships in the community and do things that are good for the environment,” Cork explained in a phone interview.
“Trying to get experiences to students that kind of gives them knowledge of the things that we could be doing to improve our relationship with our environment and just have a positive impact.”
After COVID delayed this project, the developer was very cooperative and interested in allowing students to dig up trees and transplant them to school grounds.
Last week, Cork’s Grade 9 science class and another geography class dug up and transplanted 80 red pine trees to school grounds.
Cork explained part of the curriculum covers ecology and the impact humans have on the environment, both positive and negative, and this was an opportunity for them to do something good for the environment.
Each tree was tagged with a name, either of a student or one chosen by the student.
“So our hope is that over the four years that they’re here, they’ll kind of keep an eye on their trees and watch them grow and see what the difference is between the size of the tree now and by the time they graduate,” Cork said.
Rappard said she felt it is important for young people to get involved with the environment and make impacts on climate change.
“Planting trees is one of the ways we can help them mitigate a small part of it but to make them feel ownership that they can do something on a local level,” Rappard said.
“Sometimes the whole climate change thing seems so huge that they say ‘well there’s nothing we can do,’ and just showing them that you know one little tree can make a difference.”
