Pitt-Bradford Students Teach
Conservation Lessons From Rain Forest
By Kimberly Marcott Weinberg
Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing
When University of Pittsburgh at Bradford students Phylicia Patterson and Kaitlin Zapel went to Costa Rica last summer as Vira Heinz scholars, they gained a new appreciation for trees in the earth’s ecosystem.
Now they’re working with educators at School Street Elementary School to help fourth- and fifth-graders there understand the importance of trees. After visiting Melissa Cornelius’s green and technology enrichment group last week to talk about the value of trees in the environment, the Pitt-Bradford students took the younger students to plant trees at the trailhead for the Tuna Valley Trail Association’s newest trail, the Blaisdell-Emery trail.
The School Street students seemed to have learned their lessons well and could list quite a few reasons why trees are important to the environment as they planted Tuesday morning.
“It takes in carbon dioxide and gives off oxygen,” Lance Santiago explained. “And it helps with deforestation.”
Fifth-grader Liz Schoonover said, “Trees are important because they reduce noise pollution by absorbing sound. They thrive on us because they turn carbon dioxide back into oxygen, and they preserve natural beauty.”
Helping out Patterson and Zapel were members of Pitt-Bradford’s Green Team, an environmental club on campus that plans to continue with the project in coming years.
The Green Team helped raise some of the money needed to buy willow saplings for the children to plant in a swampy area and T-shirts for the planting day, but Patterson and Zapel paid for the rest themselves since they felt it was important.
Patterson, a biology major from Bradford, concentrated on environmental studies in Costa Rica, which has a thriving economy in ecotourism.
Zapel, a human relations major from Bradford, studied language, but took a field trip to the rain forest, where she saw virgin forest, second-growth forest and a pasture where the forest had been. She also got to plant a tree.
“That was the most influential thing for me on that trip,” she said. She said the experience had a profound effect on her, causing her to be mindful of the natural resources she consumed.
When she and Patterson met to discuss a project to do as the required community engagement portion of their scholarship, both women thought of the tree planting at once.
They named their project “Branch Out,” and planned the tree planting for half-way between Earth Day last Friday, April 22, and Arbor Day this Friday, April 29.
To encourage the children to form an attachment to their trees, they had the children write their names on stakes placed next to the trees so that they can continue to visit their trees and see them grow.
Pictured, Phylicia Patterson of Bradford helping School Street Elementary School student Lance Santiago plant a willow tree along the Blaisdell-Emery trailhead Tuesday.
Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing
When University of Pittsburgh at Bradford students Phylicia Patterson and Kaitlin Zapel went to Costa Rica last summer as Vira Heinz scholars, they gained a new appreciation for trees in the earth’s ecosystem.
Now they’re working with educators at School Street Elementary School to help fourth- and fifth-graders there understand the importance of trees. After visiting Melissa Cornelius’s green and technology enrichment group last week to talk about the value of trees in the environment, the Pitt-Bradford students took the younger students to plant trees at the trailhead for the Tuna Valley Trail Association’s newest trail, the Blaisdell-Emery trail.
The School Street students seemed to have learned their lessons well and could list quite a few reasons why trees are important to the environment as they planted Tuesday morning.
“It takes in carbon dioxide and gives off oxygen,” Lance Santiago explained. “And it helps with deforestation.”
Fifth-grader Liz Schoonover said, “Trees are important because they reduce noise pollution by absorbing sound. They thrive on us because they turn carbon dioxide back into oxygen, and they preserve natural beauty.”
Helping out Patterson and Zapel were members of Pitt-Bradford’s Green Team, an environmental club on campus that plans to continue with the project in coming years.The Green Team helped raise some of the money needed to buy willow saplings for the children to plant in a swampy area and T-shirts for the planting day, but Patterson and Zapel paid for the rest themselves since they felt it was important.
Patterson, a biology major from Bradford, concentrated on environmental studies in Costa Rica, which has a thriving economy in ecotourism.
Zapel, a human relations major from Bradford, studied language, but took a field trip to the rain forest, where she saw virgin forest, second-growth forest and a pasture where the forest had been. She also got to plant a tree.
“That was the most influential thing for me on that trip,” she said. She said the experience had a profound effect on her, causing her to be mindful of the natural resources she consumed.
When she and Patterson met to discuss a project to do as the required community engagement portion of their scholarship, both women thought of the tree planting at once.
They named their project “Branch Out,” and planned the tree planting for half-way between Earth Day last Friday, April 22, and Arbor Day this Friday, April 29.
To encourage the children to form an attachment to their trees, they had the children write their names on stakes placed next to the trees so that they can continue to visit their trees and see them grow.
Pictured, Phylicia Patterson of Bradford helping School Street Elementary School student Lance Santiago plant a willow tree along the Blaisdell-Emery trailhead Tuesday.
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