Siwanoy Elementary School is preparing to start a micro-forest project to give students an interactive means to learn forest stewardship. The initiative is a partnership with Plan it Wild, a company that has recently installed micro-forests at ten other public schools.
According to Anna Simonsen-Meehan, Siwanoy’s outdoor classroom expert, the planting of the micro-forest will occur sometime in the fall. This will be followed by training in forest stewardship and data collection. It is expected that the micro-forest will serve as an outdoor teaching resource for many years to come. Siwanoy installed the Pelham school district’s first outdoor classroom in 2019.
Student participation in the mini-forest began Sept. 12 at the the back-to-school picnic, at which families picked one shrub to be planted in the forest and one to bring home to grow in their own yards.
A micro-forest is a densely packed mini forest with shrubs and trees. Compared to a regular forest, the plants in a micro-forest grow ten times as fast, said Simonsen-Meehan. This means that 20 to 30 years from now, the micro-forest at Siwanoy will have mature trees.
The project will also contribute to an ongoing long-term investigation into the effects of planting native species on biodiversity, stormwater capture and carbon sequestration. Every year, the data will be sent to the Vermont Center for EcoStudies for processing and analysis, said Simonsen-Meehan.
“The negative impact that climate change and rapid biodiversity loss is having on our lives can feel overwhelming to the individual, but our micro-forest offers our students a community-based opportunity to make their home more climate change resilient and study the positive impact of their efforts,” said Simonsen-Meehan.
Last year, fourth graders at Siwanoy helped install stormwater mitigation plantings to prevent flooding and water pollution. This, along with the desire to create additional hands-on learning space for students, inspired Siwanoy to build the 150-square-foot micro-forest this year.
“This project is a wonderful way to involve students in hands-on environmental learning while improving our local ecosystem,” Maddy Mercer, PTA President, said in a press release. “We hope it inspires other schools and communities to take similar action.”
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