Cement and brick buildings. Asphalt streets. Factories, houses and apartments. Noise and pollution. Cars, trucks and buses. People. These are images of an urban environment. They are valid perceptions of students who live, play and work in the city which was built by modern society as a testimony to human progress and technological development. Yet the picture is incomplete.
A practiced, more aware eye would also see patches of lawn, backyard gardens, flowers along walkways and shrubs softening corners of homes. Besides conscious planting, there are weeds struggling in sidewalk cracks, clumps of grass next to trodden paths and vines reaching for sunlight; the evidence of nature reclaiming its place of ownership. And trees—kite catchers in spring, shade producers in summer, with colorful and work making leaves in autumn, and branches bare as reminders of winter’s cold—are more than street names. The trees, whose branches bend to allow children to swing and whose roots present obstacles for bicycles, are an existing part of the urban environment often ignored by the city child after the climbing stage. A heritage is suggested by the names “Charter Oak” and “Elm City”; they give us a sense of history and can connect us with the people of the past. By noting the role of trees today, we can become aware of their importance in our future development and economic growth. With this understanding, trees can ‘be more than a few city street names.
The general purpose of this unit is to make students more aware of trees as a great American natural resource. As inner city students living on a coastal plain surrounded by urban development, I want them to realize that the forest of this land helped to shape the city and continues to do so. Knowledge of the role of trees in the past and of their value in the present is important because the forest serves us all, even those who never go there.
This unit is designed for use at the eighth grade level and will allow for discussion of the forest beyond the existing textbook coverage. It provides a mixing of history, science and value concerns as related to this natural resource which supplements the curriculum. Subsequent lesson plans will present step by step student activities that will connect the textbook as a resource to independent observation, investigation and skill building.
The unit’s narrative will concern itself with three general aspects: 1) the role of the forest in early American history (Connecticut and New England), 2) a scientific aspect dealing with conservation, energy and identification, and 3) the value of trees in terms of products, career potential and as a natural counterpoint to our manmade environment,