curriculum

Adequate square footage has been established to allow every 6th grader entering the school each fall to receive his or her own 27 sq. ft. area and three 5-6 foot saplings to plant in that area. Species will depend upon the nature of the specifc site that each student is assigned; students may research their sites and the needs of various species and choose their specimens based on this research.

Students will be able to study and tend these trees over the course of their three year stay at the school, transplanting them into appropriately sited tree pits during their final (eighth grade) spring. Again, students can research the conditions of various sites and consider their trees' needs, choosing neighborhood planting sites that they deem appropriate according to their research.

While plant and earth sciecnce will be at the crux of this curriculum, teachers can use the nurseries for other subject areas as well: math (charting and graphing growth, mapping sun movement), writing (trees journals, fiction relating to trees), social studies (city policy re: streets, street trees, vacant properties; cross-cultural studies of trees), art (crafts relating to trees, public art projects in and around mini-nurseries) etc.



abstract