Alex Porpora is executive director of the Utah Society for Environmental Education

"School closures and the sudden shift to at-home learning have brought significant challenges for families, teachers and even the employers of parents. We applaud the efforts of Utah’s schools and educators who have worked to ensure that students still receive quality instruction and support.

Even with this work, hours of instructional time have been lost, not all families have access to virtual learning, working parents struggle to balance work and school expectations, schools are not designed to accommodate social distancing and the mental health of students, teachers and parents has been impacted.

Today, more than ever before, education is a team effort. We need the support of schools, families and education partners in order to be successful. Around the country and the world, we are re-visioning what school will look like as we continue to address these challenges. As we are rethinking the school building, instruction and all the social services that rely on reaching students through schools, it is critical that we rethink how we use the outdoors and outdoor and environmental learning providers as critical parts of the solution.

The outdoors is a resource for learning, engagement and health, and it should be available to all. Across all age groups, greater access to the outdoors is associated with reduced stress and greater mental health and well-being.

The risks of transmitting COVID-19 are lower in outdoor spaces than indoor spaces. Parks and open spaces around the state have been operating throughout the pandemic and have developed strong health and safety guidelines.

How can we begin to rethink how we use outdoor spaces on the school grounds for learning? How can we rethink the role of local nature centers, science centers, and other community organizations to provide additional indoor and outdoor space for schools to provide needed space for social distancing? How can schools, districts and families partner with local environmental and outdoor education providers who are experts in using the outdoors for learning to develop innovative education solutions?

Recovery and resilience in the era of COVID-19 is a community-wide effort. Adding the outdoors to our toolkit of solutions for schools and families provides another opportunity to meet the challenges we are all facing.

Environmental and outdoor learning providers are working hard to continue supporting schools, communities, and families with online resources and distance learning, continuing to provide high-quality education and connection to nature through virtual experiences, offering physically distanced programming to small groups of students, teacher professional development, curriculum and so much more.

As caregivers, you can share outdoor solutions with your child’s teachers, you can make connections with your local nature centers and community organizations about the opportunities they have to share.

As teachers, you can share outdoor solutions with your principal and administrators.

As school districts, you can reach out to local community environmental and outdoor learning providers to help co-create innovative solutions for your district.

We can all be essential partners in utilizing the outdoors for the recovery and re-opening of schools. Let’s work together to make sure that students continue to thrive and learn."

Although trees in the arctic don’t reach heights as grand as elsewhere in the world, they are still there, providing the same benefits to the land and its inhabitants as they do anywhere else. Their roots help precent erosion, their branches provide shelter for wildlife, and their leaves carry nutrients that are essential for certain animals’ survival. Tree species in the arctic include alder, birch, juniper, and willows. 

Arctic willows are the hardiest of the bunch, growing in the broadest range of environmental conditions. The tree is incredibly adaptable, tolerating droughts, urban pollution, occasional flooding, and any soil type - a hardcore survivor. In the harshest conditions, the tree might only grow up to six inches tall, cementing its status as a dwarf species. When conditions are right, however, the tree can grow up to 5 feet tall with a spread of 7 feet. Its amazing adaptability has enabled the tree to become the northernmost woody plant in the world, with its natural habitat extending far above the tree line all the way to the north coast of Greenland. You can also find the tree growing in the wild further south in the Sierra Nevadas and in the Rocky Mountains.

While the tree’s natural habitat doesn’t extend into the Utah valleys, the Arctic willow can be used in home landscaping in the northern areas of Utah. Its low profile and dense branches make it a perfect addition to live wind barriers to protect homes from winter winds.

In addition to its utility in home landscaping, the Arctic willow has been used in several ways by the Inuit and Gwich’in for generations. The plant has been used for medicinal purposes, such as relieving toothaches, curing indigestion, and as a poultice on wounds. It is also a valuable food source for those living in the Bathurst Inlet area. Especially as a source for vitamin C which, as you can imagine, is hard to come by in the arctic. One young leaf from the Arctic Willow contains 7 - 10 times more vitamin C than an orange! The soft insides of young shoots are also an essential source of fiber. The tree is also an essential food source for the Arctic woolly bear moth, whose larvae depend entirely on Arctic willows as their primary food source.

Trees are essential components of ecosystems, even in the harsh ecosystems like the arctic. Without them, our planet couldn’t support the vibrant, thriving life that exists today. To learn more about the benefits of trees in our urban ecosystem, click here.

Rooted in place, trees clearly can’t migrate or seek shelter from the harsh winter conditions that will soon be upon us, so they’ve adapted to make do with their circumstances. As the days become shorter and temperatures drop, production of chlorophyll, the chemical responsible for the green color of leaves, stops and other chemicals dominate. Carotenes, the chemical responsible for yellow pigments, has been in the leaves the whole time, but chlorophyll’s brilliant green outshines the yellow for most of the year. Anthocyanins, chemicals responsible for reds and pinks, will enter production as long as temperatures stay above freezing. Drier, warmer Autumns will bring more red leaves (and a shorter period of time before leaves turn brown and drop). The balance of chemicals throughout the tree does not occur uniformly, which is why you might see greens, yellows, and reds all on one tree.

The color change is a side-effect of the shedding process, which involves the weakening of leaves’ abscission layer. The abscission layer is formed where the leaf grows out from the branch and is its primary point of connection. This point of connection is preserved throughout the Summer by the production of a hormone called auxin. Production of auxin slows as days get colder and shorter, causing the connections that hold leaves onto the branches to weaken and eventually break.

Bare branches in the Winter have three primary benefits. First, it allows the tree to expend far less energy in harsh conditions. The energy it would take to maintain leaves throughout a harsh Winter would be too much for a tree to handle. Second, it helps the tree preserve moisture in its trunk. During the Winter, almost all the water usually available to a tree is frozen, so the tree can no longer access it. By dropping its leaves, a tree can halt the process of evapotranspiration (how trees keep cool in the heat – think of it kind of like sweating) and the tree also saves water by not needing to send any to its leaves. Preserving moisture in a tree’s trunk is critical for its survival – it ensures the primary structure of the tree lives and it reduces risk of breakage. The third primary benefit is that the lack of leaves allows forceful Winter winds to pass through the branches with minimal strain. With leaves, the increased surface area would lead to increased wind resistance and more strain on the branches, which would increase the chances of detrimental breakage.

The vast majority of trees go through this process each year, keeping them safe and healthy throughout the Winter, but what about evergreens? Why don’t they go through this process? Well, tune in next week to find out!

Marcescence is the phenomenon of plants retaining plant organs that are usually shed, sometimes referring to mushrooms that dry out and later revive, but most commonly used to refer to trees with leaves that change colors but do not drop until outside forces (like wind) remove them from their branches. Trees that experience marcescence are sometimes called “everciduous.” This group of trees includes species of oak and beech. In fact, all oaks display foliage marcescence for at least a portion of their lives, only becoming truly deciduous after reaching their full maturity. The evolutionary advantage of marcescence is not fully understood, but there are two main theories among many. The first being that retaining the leaves will help protect new leaf buds from winter desiccation. The second is that the leaves dropping later in the winter season or even in early spring provide the tree with a delayed source of moisture-preserving mulch, allowing the tree to take full advantage of the snowmelt.

Perhaps more famous than the “everciduous” trees are the evergreens, a group that includes pines, cedars, hemlocks, and spruces. These trees keep their green leaves (called needles) all year long. Instead of shutting down the production of chlorophyll in the winter months, many evergreens continue to produce and benefit from the chemical, one of the necessary ingredients for photosynthesis. With the energy they produce throughout the winter through photosynthesis, evergreens are able to maintain their needles, which allows them to return to full-capacity energy production immediately when spring rolls around. However, some evergreens do cease photosynthesis during the winter months. These evergreens are usually found at higher altitudes, where the soil isn’t as rich in nutrients. The needles of evergreens are able to store vast quantities of nutrients the trees need to survive. These nutrients are typically already scarce in soils at higher altitudes and even harder to access during the winter months due to the cold temperatures. During this time, evergreens are able to use the nutrients stored in their needled to compensate for the lack of nutrients available in the soil around them. The needle-shaped leaves of conifers also help the tree retain water throughout the season by producing a chemical called cutin, a wax-like substance that traps fluids in the needles and protects them from damage. The needles also produce proteins that act like antifreeze by binding to ice crystals, inhibiting their growth and preventing ice damage. These adaptations are also what allow conifers to succeed in drier climates, like Utah. The cutin they produce to retain water works in cold and hot months, lending itself to the trees’ survival all throughout the year.

There are evolutionary advantages in keeping leaves or in dropping them and the evolutionary pathways of tree species depend on the climate in which they find themselves. Deciduous trees found themselves in situations where it was more appropriate to shed their leaves and wait winters out in a dormant state while evergreens found a different way to pass their winters by. Both are marvelous examples of the natural world at work!