Learning with Trees: Local businesses support environmental education

With the continued support of East Central Energy and CenterPoint Energy, and a new grant from Cargill Inc., Tree Trust has been able to bring our Learning with Trees program to three Minnesota schools during the 2009-2010 school year.

During the month of April, students in each of these schools will participate in the interactive Our Town Trees exhibit, an environmental learning opportunity that includes five modules such as "Trees Are Cool" and "Trees Clean Our Water," that teach the benefits of trees to build a conceptual framework for the students' hands-on planting experience that will occur later in the school year.

Green teams made up of teachers, principals, maintenance workers and parents from each school have been hard at work with our school coordinators to develop a new landscape plan for their schools' grounds. The goal for each school's green team:  to transform their playgrounds into living laboratories that provide continued opportunities for outdoor learning.

Welcoming our new Tree Trainers

With the help of two veteran volunteers, Tree Trust staff initiated a new group of 11 volunteers into the ranks of Tree Trainers this past Saturday. These dedicated volunteers learned the ins and outs of proper tree-planting, from digging down to the root flare and waking up the roots to mulching donut-style (not volcano-style). Then they got some hands-on practice leading each other through the process and planting 14 trees along the Midtown Greenway just east of Hiawatha in Minneapolis.

These and other Tree Trainers will be on hand at our planting events throughout the year to supervise volunteers and make sure everything gets in the ground correctly. That means that when you volunteer at one of our plantings, you leave behind a bunch of trees that are off to a great start in life, and you take with you the knowledge to plant trees correctly in the future.

You can learn more about planting trees correctly from our flier, aptly titled "Plant a Tree the Right Way." And we hope you'll join us at one of our events this spring, like our Green Futures planting at Lisle Park in Minnetrista, where we'll be planting 120 trees the right way. See all of our upcoming events and register for something today!

Check out more photos of the event on Flickr.

Celebrate Earth Day's birthday with trees for the Twin Cities

April 22, 2010 will be the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, started in 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as a grassroots movement to raise awareness about the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been working on separate environmental issues - from pollution and oil spills to the extinction of wildlife - came together around a common cause and began the modern environmental movement.

In celebration of Earth Day's birthday, we hope you'll come together around our common environmental cause: trees for the Twin Cities. Whether you volunteer, donate, or spread the word, your support makes our community that much greener.

Here's what we're doing to help the environment this spring, along with tips for how you can help.

Season Two: Twin Cities urban forest versus the Emerald Ash Borer

Tree Trust's very own Community Forestry Manager, Karen Zumach, wrote a great article for The Twin Cities Daily Planet about emerald ash borer in the Twin Cities. She offers some great tips for what we can do to prevent the spread of this invasive insect (hint: one tip involves firewood and, you know, not moving it!). Read the article to learn more.

Despite our best efforts to contain the pest, the fact remains that trees will be lost. You can help us reduce the impact of EAB by planting tomorrow's trees today. Check out our Green Futures page to learn more.