The children at my Spring Term After School Club at Liphook Infant School began the year by learning about tree conservation and winter birds in a creative manner. Coincidentally, the new incredible documentary series, The Green Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, which also started at the beginning of January, is all about trees and the merits of green foliage, which dovetailed wonderfully into what the kids were learning with me.
Trees and plants help combat climate change as they extract carbon dioxide from the air, and this gas, combined with water, sunlight and nutrients, creates food for the plants to survive. As a byproduct of this process of photosynthesis, trees breathe out, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere that we, humans, and other animals inhale to keep us alive.
'We need trees to survive because they breathe out oxygen that we breathe in. They also help slow down climate change by sucking in the bad carbon dioxide from the air," said one little boy during the workshop.
After learning about photosynthesis along with the many benefits trees give to all ecosystems above and below the ground, we wrapped up for the day happy in the knowledge that these children had a good understanding of why trees are so important, along with how beneficial saving energy in our homes is for the planet.
Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots run tree planting programmes, so along with the beautiful artwork, the kids created, as they walked out of my club I overheard them talking to one another about how planting trees could be a fun and helpful thing to do in 2022.
For more info, visit https://www.rootsnshoots.org.uk/blog/2020/04/21/greening-my-local-area/
