LYNNFIELD — The high school celebrated Arbor Day with a couple of projects that will not only beautify the outdoors, but will also go a long way towards protecting the environment and combating climate change.
Armed with shovels, approximately 20 members of the school’s new Environmental Awareness Club rolled up their sleeves and got dirty, planting 16 new trees near the entrance to the teachers’ parking lot.
Club leaders Georgia Milne and Jordan Lavey said the project has been in the making for nearly a year. Both seniors say they are committed to doing what it takes to protect the environment.
“I just got fed up with people not doing anything. There’s been too much talk and not enough action,” said Lavey, who plans to major in environmental science at Virginia Tech. “Georgia and I came up with this idea last August. We had to take action and thought this would be a really nice way to help the community, to make a tangible difference.”
“It feels great that this is all coming together and people are just as excited as we are,” said Milne, who plans to study politics at St. Anselm College this fall. “We are just trying to be kind to the planet and use our voices and actions for kindness. The greatest thing you can do is plant trees so it’s fitting that’s what we are doing on Arbor Day.”
Club advisor and science department chair Scott Gordon said the high-school property has lost a lot of trees over the years between neighbors’ removal, school renovations and the turf field project.
“This is filling a very important need for the property,” Gordon said. “One of our first acts is to try to reforest the campus as much as possible.”
Funded with $1,000 from the Public Works Department, the new arboretum is located on the slope near the memorial benches and tree.
All trees are native to Massachusetts. Varieties include oaks, maples, birch, tulip and quaking aspen trees, all planted in close proximity, which Gordon said mirrors what natural forests look like with closely-clustered trees.
“We are foresting as opposed to landscaping,” Gordon said. “We are growing as the forest grows.”
Tree Committee Chair Jane Bandini said the trees will take about a year before they start to grow.
“These trees are a nice size, they’re easy to plant and take less time to take off and grow compared to the ones you see at nurseries that are much larger and much more expensive,” she said. “The big ones, that are maybe four to five calipers, take four to five years before they see growth.”
Gordon hopes the area will serve multiple purposes.
“We’ll be able to use the area as a teaching garden to teach tree identification in the classes, which is a class we teach along with things like climate change and ecology,” said Gordon. “We also hope the area will be just a pleasant place to relax during the day for a moment of mindfulness.”
Earlier in the day, students in one of Gordon’s classes planted a butterfly garden behind the school as part of a sustainability project. Gordon said the garden, which contains milkweed, Joe Pye weed, yarrow and echinacea, should begin attracting butterflies in the late summer.
Gordon said the plan going forward is to apply for grant money to plant more trees elsewhere at the high school next year and that the club has already identified potential locations for future plantings.
Milne said the time to save the planet is now.
“It’s tough hearing that if you don’t work at it there will not be a future for your planet,” she said. “It’s an initiative that everybody has to work at. We just need to be kind to our planet. This is the greatest challenge we are going to face in our lifetime. There is no time to continue doing these 10-year studies. We have to act now and that’s what we’re doing.”
Lavey said she has confidence that the club will continue to carry out its mission long after the seniors are gone.
“I’m really proud that people are willing to get their hands dirty and come out for this,” she said. “I’m super excited about the future of the club. We seniors will be gone, but the younger classes will carry on what we started, so that’s really rewarding. We’ll just pass the torch on to them.”