On May 7, sixth grade students at Superior Elementary were at Savenac Nursery for the second year of the Christmas Tree Nursery Program.

The program was established as part of federally funded Forest Service initiative in an effort to get children connected to nature. The smiling faces of Angie Hopwood’s class digging holes and planting trees at the nursery alongside Forest Service employees made it evident that the initiative is working.

“It’s become part of the Savenac tradition and I love that,” Hopwood said. “It’s beneficial for the students - it’s beneficial for the environment. I just love it.”

Students at Superior Elementary School have been attending outdoor school at Savenac for over 40 years and the Superior Ranger District teamed up with the school to begin planting the nursery last May. In the year prior to the initial planting, students worked on clearing the area to prepare it for planting. Seedlings were obtained from the University of Idaho and those seedlings were planted by the sixth grade class.

“That class of kids will follow their trees all the way through high school,” Carole Johnson, Superior District Recreation Manager, said. “They will do the pruning and shaping and hopefully when they graduate from high school some of those trees will be of the size that they can sell.”

This year’s group of sixth graders planted 180 seedlings, once again donated from the University of Idaho. The seedlings represent nine different species of Christmas trees and Hopwood’s class quickly caught on to the process and was planting seedlings at a frenzied pace.

“This is so fun – it’s awesome,” Maddy Mask, a sixth grade student, said. “It’s (planting the seedlings) pretty easy, I like it.”

Throughout the day the sixth graders worked at the nursery to get all 180 seedlings planted. By the end of the experience one Forest Service employee said “you guys are expert tree planters now” to the sixth graders and it was clear that the initiative is working – the students not only worked outdoors, but they learned valuable lessons in caring for the world around them.