Tree-mendous activities to help you and your students celebrate trees
Science
- Tree Lifecycle: Teach students about the life cycle of trees, from seed to maturity, using diagrams and live examples.
- Record germination rates and grow seedlings. Give as Mother’s Day gifts!
- Tree Identification: Take students outside to identify trees using leaf, bark, and seed characteristics.
- Order free Trees of Idaho booklets to identify native conifers or use Google Lens or iNaturalist to identify deciduous or non-native trees.
- Carbon Sequestration Experiment: Explore carbon sequestration in trees and calculate the amount of carbon stored in individual trees.
- Check out PLT’s FREE Southeastern Forests and Climate Change (E-Unit), Counting Carbon Lesson
- Wildlife Log: Keep a log of how wildlife use your neighborhood trees. Describe the animals (insects, too!) and how they use flowers, leaves, limbs, seeds, and bark. Surprises await you!
- Planting Trees: Organize a tree-planting activity to teach the importance of reforestation.
Math
- Tree Measurements: Have students measure tree height and calculate the age of a tree using trunk circumference and growth factor formulas.
- Use Nature’s Skyscrapers in the Explore Your Environment guide or this free family version.
- Data Analysis: Collect data on the number of trees in the schoolyard and create graphs showing species diversity or tree sizes.
- Budgeting for Green Projects: Plan a tree-planting project and calculate costs for saplings, soil, and maintenance.
- Explore how much wood is used to produce an issue of your favorite comic book or newspaper. Graph your data.
English/Language Arts
- Tree Poems: Encourage students to write poems or haikus inspired by trees or nature.
- Writing: Assign essays or speeches on the importance of the forest products industry, the role of trees in carbon sequestration, the use of mass timber in construction.
- Storytelling: Have students write short stories featuring trees as central themes or characters.
Social Studies
- Historical Perspectives: Explore the history of Arbor Day and the work of J. Sterling Morton, its founder.
- Global Forestry Practices: Compare and contrast forest management practices in different countries.
- Community Action: Research and present on local organizations involved in tree planting and conservation.
- Interview people of many ages to learn how trees touch their lives. Write an article or letter to the editor of your local or school newspaper sharing your findings.
Art
- Tree Drawings and Paintings: Create artwork inspired by trees in different seasons or ecosystems.
- Nature Collage: Use leaves, bark, and other natural materials to make collages.
- Murals: Collaborate on a mural depicting a forest scene or the importance of trees.
- Make wooden bird houses, feeders or jewelry.
- Create handmade paper greeting cards.
- Design creatures from cones, twigs and other tree parts.
Technology/Computer Science
- Tree Mapping: Use tools like Google Earth to map trees in the community and analyze patterns.
- Tree Assessment: Use MyTree to discover the benefits of your trees.
- Tree Growth Simulation: Explore online tools or software that simulate tree growth over time.
- Infographics: Teach students to create infographics about the environmental benefits of trees using design software.
Classroom-Wide Activities
- Adopt-a-Tree Program: Each class or student can “adopt” a tree, care for it, and document its growth over the year.
Arbor Day Scavenger Hunt
Students can use their senses to find and check-off each item.
- A tree younger than you
- An insect on a tree
- A songbird in a tree
- A bird’s nest in a tree (don’t disturb it!)
- A twig with a “face”
- An animal’s home in a tree
- A tree shaped like a triangle
- A tree that’s changed something
- A stump telling a tree’s history
- Dried tree”blood” (sap)
- Last year’s leaf still on a tree
- Three leaves with different shades of green
- A partially eaten seed cone
- A tree with a healed injury
- A tree that could use your help
- A tree three times as tall as you
- A seedling just sprouting near an older tree
- Five things you’ve used today that have come from trees
Arbor Day Coloring Sheet
Bring some color to Arbor Day! Click here to download a coloring sheet.
