By Joanna Miller, Staff Writer 

Students grabbed shovels and dug in during a combined Earth Day and Arbor Day event at Jeffers Pond Elementary School Wednesday.

The Prior Lake-Spring Lake Watershed District invited the entire student body to lend a hand with an all-day tree planting project on the school property.

Members of the watershed district, Kestrel Design Group and Minnesota Native Landscape educated students about the environmental benefits of trees in preparation of Arbor Day, April 25.

Mike Kinney, district administrator for the watershed district, said the project began as an effort to replace trees from previous work at the site and to reach out to students.

Organizers coordinated planting an area closer to the school and away from the creek shoreline.

“We’ve done some other restoration work out here,” Kinney said. “It’s a replanting of those that didn’t survive.”

The planting offered an opportunity for young conservationists to get hands-on experience.

Students as young as kindergartners helped plant more than 300 trees at the site.

Many of the children told volunteers they plan to come back to the school to check on their trees in the future.

Some also gave their trees names, including “Woody” and “Molly the Maple.”

During the process, the students learned more about trees’ impact on the environment, too.

“There is more and more evidence that trees in urban areas provide a storm water quality benefit,” Kinney said.

Few people realize the water-quality benefits trees offer for area streams and lakes, Kinney said.

The benefits of trees to provide wildlife habitat areas and to improve air quality are more commonly known, he said.

In urban or suburban areas, Kinney said trees offer a benefit to bodies of water because they reduce storm water runoff.

Kinney said trees can absorb water, thus reducing the amount of water running off concrete or impervious surfaces.

Tory Christensen, a landscape ecologist with Kestrel Design Group, said the team moved the project uphill from the original planting site along the shoreline.

Students planted Bur and Red Oak, Sugar Maple, Hackberry and River Birch trees.

“That’s what’s growing in the forest around the school here,” Christensen said. “We’re just copying nature.”

While working with a large group of students wasn’t the most efficient way to plant the area, Christensen said it was the most rewarding.

“One girl told me she wants to come back to see the trees when she goes to college,” he said.

The event landed on a pristine day, as temperatures reached the upper 70s, before returning to colder, rainier days at the week’s end.

The weather provided Kinney with an example for how the trees will help down the road.

He said solid surfaces warmed by the sun heat rainwater that runs into area tributaries and water bodies. This increases the overall temperature of these bodies of water and impacts wildlife and water quality.

“It’s artificially heating some of the water bodies,” Kinney said.

He also noted that water that runs into storm drains doesn’t go to a treatment plant; it pours directly into local water bodies. At most, he said, some water goes through holding ponds before making it into major lakes and rivers.

“It’s a direct connection to the nearest body of water,” Kinney said. “Everything that goes down the storm drain goes right into a river or lake.”

With energy bills on the rise, Kinney said an additional benefit to trees in urban or suburban areas is the shade they provide. Electrical bills for cooling can be reduced by strategically planting trees to block sunlight hitting one’s home, he explained.

  Joanna Miller can be reached at (952) 345-6375 or jmiller@swpub.com.