Human Health
You may not know it, but trees help keep you healthy every day. From cleaning up human messes to growing food and providing ecosystems that support the growth of plants people use as medicines, trees are multitasking for public health all the time.
Trees are True Planet Protectors
Trees do so much to keep the planet healthy. They clean up so many messes that people make, ensuring that our air, land, and water are healthy. Here are two of the amazing jobs they take care of:
Trees are giant natural air filters. They breathe in the air people create and breathe out fresh, clean air.
Trees also suck up nasty pollution like farm chemicals and sewage from the soil using their roots. This is called phytoremediation. Sometimes they store the pollutants and sometimes they can actually change the pollutant to make it less harmful.
Have a tree appreciation day by discussing all the ways that trees keep the planet healthy. You can also find out if your community has a local nonprofit that focuses on tree conservation or if your city has a tree protection program. Write letters (on recycled or reused paper) to support their efforts.
Smokey the Bear
Forest fires are an important part of the natural life cycle of wooded areas, but human development has increased the amount of forest fires to the point that they're not always helpful and can be very devastating to both natural and human communities. Visit www.smokeybear.com to learn more about wildfires and how you and your students can prevent them. By preventing forest fires, people protect wooded natural habitats. They also prevent the harm that can come from fires that encroach on residential areas and the massive amounts of air pollution forest fires create. It's a win, win, win situation.
