This summer, our school was awarded a grant from the Tree Trust organization to plant 25 trees on our property. In December, I found myself in a meeting with the tree trust liaison, our building principal and magnet TOSA. A map of our school yard was pulled out and discussion turned to where trees might go and what trees we could pick. It became overwhelming to me for a few reasons. First, the possibilities made my head swim. We have quite a large schoolyard and there were so many choices: birches in the lower field? Oak in the new clearing? White pine to border the upper field? The idea of more shade for the playground got brought up as well. I think it was this turn in the conversation that made me decide we needed to pause. The tree trust organization suggests creating a student green team to help be in charge of some of this process. But, I saw a bigger opportunity to involve more students and use some principles of design thinking. I spent the rest of December coming up with a plan for how to frame this idea and finally got a chance to try it out last week.

I’ve become interested in storytelling as a creative tool for teaching, and have found this is a technique that works for me. So I kicked off this three day project by telling the students of the story so far. This engaged the students in the content and process and connected with them at an emotional level. After brainstorming as class ways trees could be used to create or change our landscape, I shared some of the thoughts I had about how the trees might be used to both confirm their suggestions and introduce new ideas if they hadn’t been brought up. You can see my presentation here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1StCOREex5r6zNFczfJg_SUOwFaDht5BJvhn0cBefs4g/edit?usp=sharing. Next, we started getting into specifics. I shared a slideshow with students via SeeSaw of tree choices. I explained that these trees were chosen based on the school forest plan generated for our school by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as part of our school forest plan. As students swiped through the slideshow, they made a chart in their science notebooks for Tree, Number and Why. Students had to consider the possibilities that trees can create that we discussed (shade, science, art, habitat, privacy and peace). We also looked broadly at  locations. We discussed constraints of placement, including athletics fields, new construction, current use of spaces and landscape features like hills and current gardens.

The next day, we did a tour of our school grounds. This allowed students to see the spaces they were considering in real life, how close locations were to existing structures like buildings, sidewalks and other trees. This also got us a chance to really look a the space, review who currently uses each space and for what reason. We also got to talk about how trees could change the use of that space and therefore also change who might use it. This also gave us a chance to talk about how there really isn’t a spot where all 25 trees could fit together. Instead, we’ll have to break the number into smaller groups. We also talked about how it’s possible to meet the needs of more than one category at a time. For example, a group of birch could be chosen for artistic reasons, but the placement decision could lead also to shade and habitat.

With the few minutes left of class, I introduced Google Earth to classes. Students learned how to use the search tool to put in our school’s name, how to change from 2D to 3D view and how to zoom in and navigate the scene. This was the first time using this app for many students, which I hadn’t considered ahead of time. It’s a fascinating tool for kids and leads to so many questions and inspires so much curiosity. In hindsight, I wish I had thought through the novelty of this more and allowed time for students to explore and discover before focusing on tasks.

On the last day, all of the individual pieces came together to their final proposal. Students started by logging into see saw. Leaving that app open, they then navigated to Google Earth, found our school and a specific location on the grounds that they wanted to propose for tree planting. Using the camera tool on the left navigation bar of the Google earth, they took a snapshot of the location. Taking a snapshot brings up a menu of choices for how to use the picture, SeeSaw is one of the options. When SeeSaw is selected, students begin by confirming it’s them. Initially, the snapshot doesn’t show in the feed view, but taping their name on their folder refreshes the screen to make it appear. Tapping the three dots on the picture allows students to edit the image. We used the draw tool to draw in the number of trees they wanted in that spot. The text tool allowed students to document what type of tree they wanted and why they chose that species of tree. This process was repeated until they had their 25 trees documented.

I really wasn’t sure how these three days of instruction were going to play out. I didn’t know if kids would be engaged in this process, if it was too much or too little to ask of them, I wasn’t completely sure how best to have kids document their ideas and final proposals and yet it all came together quite swimmingly if I say so myself.

This project started as a loose idea during a meeting. Sitting in an office, surrounded by adults making decisions about our schoolyard just felt so wrong. Reflecting on my thinking process in designing these three days of instruction, I really give a lot of credit back to the Teachers Guild. The training I went through this summer and the ongoing meetings this school year has really started putting design thinking into my thought patterns. This project is also a perfect example of what can happen when you are willing to let go. If I had kept doing all the same lessons I had been doing year after year, I would have never had time to try this. There continue to be sticking points around changing my role and lessons, but the fact that I was able to embrace this moment as it arose and turn it into a learning opportunity for kids feels pretty good.

I feel pretty proud of how this all turned out. I am excited to have engaged so many students around how we can use trees. I was overjoyed to have another reason to get kids outside for some meaningful observations and discussions. I was thrilled to see how technology really became a necessary component to help students share their thoughts and ideas. As a bonus side-effect, because plans were shared via SeeSaw, parents are now chiming in on plans too, commenting on tree choice and locations.

In another week, I’ll be in another meeting with the same adults. But this time, I’ll be able to come armed with pages of ideas that are authentically from our community. We won’t be able to use everyone’s plans in the final decision, but I think knowing that they got to be a part of the process was a big step.  I also think there will be many portions of plans that will be used. I look forward to students being able to point to a new tree and think ‘that’s where I said that should go’ and feel that much more connected to our school yard and a part of nature.