How to get your school involved

Schools Tree Day is a day for school communities to get involved in Australia's biggest tree planting event. Since 2003 more than a million students have taken part in native tree planting activities within their school grounds and local neighbourhoods. In fact each year schools make up the majority of Tree Day sites! Schools Tree Day provides students with practical, hands-on learning and makes a tremendous contribution to Australia's natural environment.

The majority of Tree Day plantings happen during the last weekend of July:

Schools Tree Day - Friday, 31 July 2009
 National Tree Day - Sunday, 2 August 2009

However, schools are not restricted to Planet Ark's insured dates - you can plant at any time that suits the local weather conditions and your curriculum! (Note: Your school's insurance must cover tree planting activities if you plant on a date that is not insured by Planet Ark).

Schools Tree Day creates learning opportunities that can achieve outcomes in the Key Learning Areas of Studies of Society & Environment and Science. Tree Day has also been incorporated into Art, Poetry, Maths, English, Communication, Horticulture, Technology (woodwork) and Work & Community (life skills) studies.

You can read about the different ways that schools have participated in Schools Tree Day by visiting our Case Studies page. For more ideas about how getting involved in Schools Tree Day can help your school work towards achieving objectives in environmental education and other Key Learning Areas, see our web links page.

There are seven easy steps to getting your students involved in Schools Tree Day, July 31, 2009.

You can also download this information as a pdf document (317k download).

Seven simple steps: how to get your students involved

1. Nominate a teacher or parent who is willing to oversee preparations for the day. This can be a K-6 teacher or a Year 7-12 teacher of Science, Geography, PD/H/PE or Design & Technology. Could this be you?

2. Pick a spot for students to plant trees. This can be at the school or in the local community. Students can plant in the school grounds, local park, school, creek, roadside or bush - even on private land. Anywhere where you can get permission to plant native trees, shrubs or groundcovers.

Think about the environmental outcomes of your planting, and get advice to determine what types of plants or other activities will achieve the best results. Where there is a healthy community of native plants already in existence at or near the site you should find out whether other ways of encouraging these native plants and seeds to spread and grow would be better than introducing new plants (for example bush regeneration, brush-matting or fencing to keep off grazing stock). You can download a Planting Guide produced by the Australian Association of Bush Regenerators.


3. Pick a day to plant your trees! Your school may want to hold a tree planting event on a day other than Schools Tree Day or National Tree Day - or maybe even register sites for a number of days!

Where planting takes place on a date not insured by Planet Ark, the school is responsible for ensuring that adequate insurance cover is in place for the activities undertaken. For further information visit our FAQ/Insurance page or call the National Tree Day Hotline on 1300 88 5000.


4. Register your school for Tree Day. There are 3 easy ways you can register:

Register online and save paper!

or - Send us a School Site Registration Form (click to download the form as a pdf).

or - Register over the phone - call the National Tree Day Hotline on 1300 88 5000.


5. Structure the experience around a simple lesson on trees:

a. By planting native trees and shrubs, your students can increase local biodiversity, providing food and shelter for local native wildlife.

b. Students can find out if they can help to solve any particular environmental problems in their local area by planting native species, for example helping to counteract salinity, reduce soil erosion and improve water quality.

c. Students can plant native tree species to offset the yearly carbon dioxide emissions produced by their family car. 17 native trees over their lifetime (around 30 years) can offset the carbon emissions produced by an average year of car use (For details visit the Greenfleet web site), or this same amount can be offset within one year by planting 200 native trees (For details visit the TreeSmart web site).

d. Students can plant a tree to honour a beloved friend or relative, a retired teacher or former pupil - or even to celebrate the birth of a new family member.

6. Ask the local community for assistance. Your local community nursery, Council Tree Officer, Bushcare or Landcare group may be able to help by supplying native seedlings or seeds. Perhaps they can also provide buckets and shovels on the day or help with preparing the site and maintenance? Your local Lions or Rotary club may help by providing a sausage and vegieburger sizzle on the day! Our National Tree Day hotline can advise on local contacts in your area - call 1300 88 5000.


7. Plan to care for your plants. Of course it's vitally important to take care of the plants and schedule in watering and maintenance especially in the first few weeks after planting takes place. Why not start an environmental group at the school or have groups of students or a class adopt a tree? You can also incorporate other activities such as weeding, seed collecting, bush regeneration and propagation.

Related Document

Documents marked with PDF may only be available in PDF format. If you don't have Adobe Acrobat (or the reader), a FREE reader is available from Adobe.