Over an 8 week period this fall, students from Bronx Green and Bronx Park Middle Schools participated in an extensive study of trees through the A Tree Grows in the Bronx program. Students spent each week outside within their community learning the importance of the trees planted in their neighborhood, looking closely at the critters that call the trees home and playing educational games with the central focus of learning parts of trees and how to classify local vegetation.
As the culmination of the program, students marched their fostered pine, cherry and maple trees down Allerton Avenue and into the Bronx River forest where they planted their “pet” trees alongside 100+ other herbaceous plants. Students exclaimed with excitement how they had seen images of people planting trees in movies and on tv shows and have always wanted the opportunity to try so themselves.
The A Tree Grows in the Bronx program exposes students to different aspects of their own neighborhoods in relation to the river as well as new and different green career opportunities for their future. We thank the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for support of this program.
