Students each given tree seedling

DEERING — Second graders at Dawson-Bryant were given a gift on Friday that can last for generations.

Kim Carrico, urban/education specialist for the Lawrence Soil and Water Conservation District, was on hand at the school, where she presented each of the children in the class with an eastern pine seedling, as part of the school’s Arbor Day celebration.

Carrico said she has distributed 1,100 of the seedlings to students in Lawrence schools this week.

“I just gave out 36 at Head Start this morning,” she said. “And I’m doing 92 here.”

She gave the students instructions on how to plant and care for their trees.

“The first year, you’ll have to baby it,” she said. “They’re like a baby and you need to take care of it.”

She said the trees can live as long as 400 years. And, if they grow healthy, she said the children could expect to see their first pine cones on their trees in just a few years.

“They’ll have little baby cones that will start dropping,” she said.

Carrico told the class about why trees are important.

“The biggest reason we needs trees is for oxygen,” she said. We work together with trees to breathe. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, which is a colorless, odorless gas that is necessary for life on earth. A tree does the opposite.  They breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. So we partner together.”

Terri Corvin, a second grade teacher at the school, said Carrico has been coming to the school each year for the past five years.

She said, in preparation for the visit, the students had been studying about the holiday.

“We teach them to take care of the earth,” she said.