07/29/24 - 107 New Stories - REAL Environmental & Conservation Leadership In PA: http://tinyurl.com/7k7dpu47
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Seedlings For Schools Program Hits Major Growth Spurt
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More than a thousand schools across Pennsylvania this spring received seedlings through the Game Commission’s Seedlings for Schools Program. Most of the seedlings, which shipped from the commission’s Howard Nursery in Centre County in time for Arbor Day, were part of the Seedlings for Your Class component of the program aimed primarily at third grade students. Each class or grade level received enough silky dogwood or white pine seedlings for each student to take one home.
In addition, explained Janet Nyce, President of the Wildlife For Everyone Endowment Foundation, “The seedlings come with an education package for the teacher. The teacher gets to teach a whole program around trees, environment and the importance of planting trees in your own local community.”
The Wildlife For Everyone Endowment Foundation, Waste Management Inc., Mealey’s Furniture, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Partners for Wildlife, and Pheasants Forever Chapter 603 provided major support to the program.
“There is no charge to schools participating in this project, as the seedlings are provided by the Game Commission’s Howard Nursery,” said Commission Executive Director Carl Roe. “The cost of shipping seedlings is covered through the generous donations” from the Wildlife For Everyone Endowment Foundation and other partners.
In addition, noted Cliff Guindon, Superintendent of the Nursery, “The Wildlife For Everyone Endowment Foundation has been an integral part from day one three years ago, actually from pre-day one, helping to get things lined up to help it go.”
Nyce said, “We were very excited to get involved because all of us, when we were in elementary school many years ago, used to get seedlings to take home and plant in our yards. And, that left an impression on all of us.”
While that previous school-seedling program eventually came to an end, the current program grew from a handful of schools participating the first year to more than 500 last years to more than a thousand this year.
Some of the seedlings also were shipped for the Seedlings to Develop Habitats component of the program, which is aimed at middle and high school students interested in planting them on school or community grounds, or along a stream corridor, to improve habitat; as a tree nursery; or in an environmental area.
Seedlings were shipped in bundles of 25. According to Guindon, some days two full UPS truckloads of bundles left the nursery.
“We send the teachers anywhere from 50 to a couple hundred seedlings, and you would think we sent them a pot of gold,” he said. “They’re that enthused about this program.”
For more information, visit the Seedlings for Schools Program webpage.
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5/24/2010 |
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