It’s a cool day, but the sun is shining as 65 seventh graders from Astor Middle School in NE Portland grab a pair of headphones and plunge into the forest at Hoyt Arboretum. It’s not their first time here, so they have become familiar with the trails, but the headphones are new.
They head to Redwood Trail where they find Dann Disciglio, a professor from Lewis & Clark who introduces one of today’s activities: listening to the Western redcedar.
Over the school year, these students have been getting acquainted with this Pacific Northwest native tree that is experiencing dieback from extended periods of drought. Through field trips to Hoyt Arboretum, classroom visits, studying heat maps of the city, nature journaling, various listening activities, and more, students are developing a deeper connection with nature and an understanding of how climate change is impacting plants.
Middle school is great timing for this for two reasons:
1. Young teens start making connections between the patterns they are seeing in the weather and climate change
2. Schools have limited access to outdoor field trips at this age
When they put on the headphones, they are connected to a contact microphone placed on a young Western redcedar. When the students finally quiet down, they can hear the internal sounds of the tree (a mix between vibrations and windy sounds).
Then Dann suggests a few kids come forward and stamp their feet near the tree. Eyes widen as the vibration sounds intensify. In the most direct way, where we put our feet can impact the trees around us, and – in a broader way – all of our actions might impact trees.
For today, it’s enough just to plant this seed. During the rest of the school year, these early teens got an up-close look at how the Hoyt Arboretum community addresses climate change across our programs including community science to monitor tree health and seed collection work.
At the end of the field trip, here’s what one student had to say about how the Western redcedar makes her feel:
“The Western redcedar makes me feel like I’m really surrounded by nature — its sheer greenness and how high it stands. It feels empowering to look at them and think, wow, this is still living even though so much has happened to it.”
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