Back to School and Back to Nature

Back-to-School ads are all over the newspapers, tv, radios, and online. They are talking about backpacks, lunch bags, stuffed pencil cases, new outfits, and even electronics. Articles suggest how to introduce your child to kindergarten, when to bring bedtime back to a more reasonable hour, and why its important to provide healthy snacks and meals for your children. We are inundated!

Now CLC Tree Services is all for quality education, but sometimes that comes from more than just books, Smart Boards, and the teachers that use them. Sometimes you have to step outside into the real world, and learn a thing or two from Mother Nature. The natural world is an amazing place and by studying it we are better able to protect it, so that future generations will have the world to take care of them too.

ReGreening School Yards with ReForest London

That is just one of the reasons why ReForest London works with area school groups to transform school yards into outdoor classrooms. They know that kids love nature to play, relax, and learn from. Children spend plenty of time outside during recesses, and you’ll always see them using trees for home base in games of tag, as a backrest while they read books, and even as their own personal science labs where they learn about all that nature has to offer (think bugs mating, bird nests, and flower petals in their hair). Natural spaces increase creativity, physical activity, and cooperation in children, at the same time as they provide shade and shelter, reduce wind, soil erosion, water pollution and excess noise.

School grounds noisy, you say? Who would’ve guessed?

So, if you didn’t know that ReForest London helps to regreen school yards listen up, as you might want to contact them to transform YOUR child’s school yard this year. Here are some of the things that they do with your help;

Steps to ReGreen your School Yard

• For starters, you have to gather a group of people to help support your tree planting initiative. Think students, parents, teachers and administrative members of your school group.
• Contact your Principal to get them on board with your plan. They need to approve of any trees that will be planted on the property.
• Once you’ve got these people in place, get in touch with ReForest London. They will come out to offer an introduction to their program, as well as do a walk around the school to find an appropriate area to work on. ReForest London also has plenty of fundraising ideas to help get your greening project underway.
• Now they help to draw up a project plan and craft a budget with you; a realistic plan for you to work within.
• Time for some work by you. Raise a minimum of $1000, to a maximum of $2000 for your schoolyard transformation. ReForest London matches your funds dollar for dollar!
• With approvals, money, and a project plan in place, it is time to get some trees. A date is set for the tree planting that works for all involved, including students! Everyone should have had a hand in the project, so everyone gets to get their hands dirty.
• Aftercare for the trees is maintained for a minimum of two years. Hopefully the watering, weeding and mulching will go on for the length of your new natural space.

Greening a School Together

And the results are a natural space that everyone can enjoy for years to come. When playgrounds are filled with metal, plastic and other man-made constructions, play is limited. Let your child’s imagination soar to the treetops in a natural setting that they can explore alone, with friends or even with their class. Maybe one day, they will be ringing up CLC Tree Services and sharing with us all about their favourite trees that they grew up with on their school grounds, compliments of a suggestion by this blog…