Students Wow Branch Out Burlington!

November 7, 2011

The ‘Greening Our Cities with Trees’ Research & Service class has been busy this month! The students continue to wow Branch Out Burlington! with their incredible weeding and mulching at the nursery – the director of the organization has never seen the nursery look so good! We also had a chance to work with trees on Willard St., pruning away dead branches and suckers from the base of the trees. Last Wednesday, we met a group of UVM students at Ethan Allen Homestead for a tree tour around the property, which was part of the UVM students’ own collaboration with Branch Out Burlington! Eli, Lutes, Ben, Lauren, Greg, and Lyn impressed us all with their tree identification skills – they have learned a lot in Science 8!

The class has a lot of exciting events coming up. Tomorrow we will be presenting the nursery to a group of Champlain College Environmental Studies students who are interested in seeing the nursery. During the next month we will be working with both the South Burlington and the Burlington city arborists to learn more about tree pruning and maintenance once the trees have been planted in an urban setting. We hope to prune some of the trees right on school property and along Green Mountain Drive – perhaps you will notice the results! When we’re not outside, we’ve recently been discussing the importance of urban planning and will soon be meeting with the director of the Urban & Community Forestry Program.

posted by Ruth Heindel