On my mind: trees

Hello everyone,

This post is part of Rhonda's "On my mind" series and is inspired by the National Tree Day campaign.

Trees outside my backyard. Photo taken this morning. It was so cold! In the summer, I often string up the hammock between these trees and enjoy the view in the shade.

A few days ago, Jarrod from Green Bean contacted me to let me know of National Tree Day campaign. Now to be honest, I have never heard of the campaign before. But then, like many things in life, upon hearing it, suddenly I am seeing it everywhere. My children came home from school on Wednesday letting me know that today, is School's Tree Day. Schools Tree Day part of the National Tree Day campaign, organised by Planet Ark in partnership with Toyota and its Dealer network. Today, up to 250,000 Australian school children will take part in learning more about their environment.

In my children's school, they are planting 7 more trees. I'm glad they are doing that. In the past, I have to say I have been disappointed with decisions to cut down trees (as opposed to replanting) in my children's school property to make way for more buildings.

In March 2011, Planet Ark commissioned an independent study to investigate childhood interaction with nature and how this interaction is changing. The research was conducted by Pollinate, a specialist communications research company, and was sponsored by Toyota Australia.

The results of this research show that the landscape of childhood has changed. In a single generation there has been a profound shift from outdoor to indoor play. This comes at no surprise to me. Almost all of my children's learning takes place indoors. Even their environment learning centre is a building (with a small yard for planting vegetables)!! Someday, I would like my children to go to school where trees, outdoor play and outdoor learning are an integral part of their school environment.

National Tree Day is actually on this Sunday, 31 July 2011. (Click on link for more details.) I am planning on planting a tree in the nature reserve area just outside my backyard. My lovely neighbours have already checked it out with the local government and apparently, tree/shrub planting on the nature reserve along Lake Tuggeranong is allowed. How cool is that?!

To commemorate this event, I am planning on a little competition for readers of this blog. I will post details about it tomorrow (Saturday, 30 July 2011)!