Goals

• Help students understand the importance of individual responsibility
• Encourage students to become caretakers of their environment
• Increase students’ awareness and knowledge of trees

Essential Questions

• What is our responsibility to the environment?
• Why are trees important?
• What are the components of a tree?

These activities help to satisfy the Illinois State Learning Standards in English Language Arts.

For a full listing, please visit: http://www2.isbe.state.il.us/ils/ela/stage_C/descriptor.htm

The Man Who Planted Trees

1. As a class read Jean Giono’s short story “The Man Who Planted Trees” available as a PDF at http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/plantedtrees.pdf
2. As a class discuss the following questions:
   
   • The man who planted trees doesn’t want credit, notoriety for all his hard work, why?
   • Are you willing to do the right thing when there is no benefit to you?
   • Do you consider yourself to be a responsible person? Why? In what ways?
   • Do you consider it important for your friends and family members to be responsible? Why?
   • Think about somebody you know who is very responsible. How does that person demonstrate responsibility? Does that make you respect him/her more?
   • The other man leaves the Shepherd alone, and doesn’t tell anyone what’s going on. Why would that have been betraying the Shepherd?
3. Discuss the differences between the play and the written version of “The Man Who Planted Trees”

The Importance of Trees

1. As a class, discuss why trees are important to the environment. Write their answers on the board or overhead.
2. Hand out and read the Top 22 Benefits of Trees worksheet.
3. In small groups, have students imagine their ideal school and school ground in the future. What would it look like? Have students write and illustrate their description.
4. As a class, discuss their ideas.

Tree Investigation

1. Take students outside and ask them to pick a tree they like. If their tree will be difficult to find again have the student tie a piece of yarn onto one of its branches.
2. Have students make a rubbing of a section of its bark. This drawing will be used as the title page of their tree book.
3. Have students draw their tree and record specific attributes like estimated height, width of trunk, color, leave shape, etc.
4. If it’s a deciduous tree, have the students collect some leaves to dry and add to a page in their book later. If it’s a coniferous tree, paste some of its needles to a page in the book.
5. Have students research their tree. Find out its name, the other areas it grows in, and what animals it rely on it.
6. Have students write a mini research paper based on their research. Have students include facts about the components of a tree, photosynthesis, potential threats, etc.
7. Continue to make observations of the tree through the year.
8. Bind all the pages to make a Tree Book.

Additional Resources

Check out http://www.ina-online.org/pdfs/ChicagoTreesJune_09.pdf to get involved in your own community.