‘Nature Magic’: Tree Science Brought to Life at Broadmeadow

May 5, 2025
• Young students received hands-on instruction on trees for an Arbor Day celebration at Broadmeadow Elementary last week.

Second graders started their school year learning all about trees and their place in the ecosystem. By May, those same students ventured outside the classroom to plant their own trees, which school leaders and town officials hope grow and eventually outlive the small learners.

Needham Parks and Forestry walked the grounds outside Broadmeadow Elementary on Friday, teaching four second-grade classes about Arbor Day — celebrated the previous week — before handing them each a shovel to bury new saplings at the front entrance.

The planting was a continuation of the town’s recent efforts around trees. Arborists will also plant a tree at Needham High School on Wednesday, with help from the school’s Environmental Action Club.

Ed Olsen, superintendent of Parks and Forestry, led an abbreviated history lesson on Arbor Day, and students talked about the benefits trees provide: wood for houses and paper, shade on a hot day, fruit to eat, flowers and greenery to admire and, most miraculously, oxygen to breathe.

“It’s nature magic!” one student exclaimed.

Earlier this year, students tapped sugar maples to make syrup on the property, and Olsen saw Friday’s tree celebration as an extension of their education. For him, “it’s all about the kids right now.”

“Second graders are great. They’re malleable. They take it all in,” he said. “And we hope that these are life lessons that they keep with them their whole life.”

Each second grader received their own fraser fir sapling to bring home, as well as coloring books related to the holiday.

Second-grade teacher Mackenzie Schnyer supervised as her classroom planted a sugar maple, one that town arborists installed earlier that morning, given its larger size. Kids took turns piling dirt on the tree and trying to spot worms in the soil.

The Needham Science Center provides much of the grade’s science curriculum, which involves hands-on activities, Schnyer said, but seeing those lessons in action “makes it really much more powerful for the students.”

“It gets them excited to contribute and see the importance of trees,” she added, “and then they get to bring that home as well with their own tree.”

Before the plantings, Forestry Foreman Mike Logan examined the trees’ root structure with students and detailed how trees should be properly planted — bury the roots, not the bark, he said.

“Our motto is, ‘If it’s a little high, it won’t die, a little low, it won’t grow,’” Logan said. With the right conditions and support, trees can thrive, he said.

By late Friday morning, Broadmeadow became home to two more sugar maples and two flowering crab apples.

A central tenet at Broadmeadow is to take care of the school, Principal Andy Garlick said. The plantings are a shining example of just that, he said.

“At Broadmeadow, we’re really dedicated to helping kids be involved and active citizens of Needham,” Garlick said, “and so this gives them a real chance to see what it takes to take care of our school building, and what it takes to take care of our planet.”

As one class of students gathered around a sapling, Logan pointed to their enduring legacy at their soon-to-be alma mater.

“When you guys come back 30 years from now, you’re gonna say ‘I planted this tree,’” Logan said.