High School students in the Upper Grand District School Board’s Headwaters and Community Environmental Leadership Programs planned to plant enough trees to offset carbon emissions from their school bus.
The planting was scheduled for 83 Carter Road, in Arkell. Members of the Eden Mills, Going Carbon Neutral project will be on-hand to award the students with the Going Carbon Neutral logo for their bus, to recognize their efforts.
Students in the Grade 10 CELP program and grade 12 headwaters program attend regular classes in a natural environment at Camp Edgewood in Eden Mills. That hamlet was the first community in North America to declare its intention to take responsibility for climate changing carbon dioxide emissions emitted by daily living when it launched a Going Carbon Neutral Project.
It was school bus driver Daryl Nichol who understood driving to school was adding to the problem of climate change. With the help of the students, trees donated by Wellington County’s Green Legacy tree nursery the project got started.
Teacher Katie Gad said, “It’s been an eye-opener for all of us to see the enormous number of trees that we needed to plant just to compensate for a simple daily trip to school.”
Teacher Mike Elrick added, “As teachers, we encourage students to ask questions and to notice what’s happening in the world around them. Planting trees will be a hands-on experience that helps us connect a couple of those dots.”
While it will be years before the 1,000 trees will reach their full carbon sequestering capacity, the group hopes the effort made will start more people thinking about the connection between everyday activities and their effect on the environment. Beyond absorbing carbon dioxide, trees have essential functions like helping to maintain a healthy water balance. Rob Johnson, manager of the Wellington County tree nursery warned, “A community like ours needs a minimum tree cover of 30% to maintain water quality and quantity – at the moment we’ve got about half the trees we need.”
