Willow Ecologists Take Action for Our Planet

All 6th graders in Willow are required to take on a service project. We are a group of four students that are working on a project about reforestation. We each chose one topic that helps us understand environmental issues better. Our chosen topics were: reforestation, deforestation, biodiversity and climate change. We each wrote an essay and we want to share some information with you.

Some of you might be wondering what biodiversity is? Biodiversity is all the different kinds of life you’ll find in an ecosystem. It is also used to describe the variety of living things on Earth. For healthy ecosystems, it is important to have all the animals and plants that belong there, because they keep each other in balance.

Willow seniors join the middle school on their outing to Silva NPO's reforestation project.

Reforestation is a term known for planting trees in a place where trees have been destroyed or cut down by humans. Reforesting helps to heal the Earth and the things that live on it. Trees can prevent natural disasters and help with pollution and help to cool the areas around them.

Deforestation is the opposite of reforestation. Deforestation happens when many trees in an area are cut down until they are gone. How many people are affected by deforestation? Forests are home to about 300 Million people and billions of other living creatures. Us humans have destroyed their homes for farms, livestock, wood, wood products and to make room for humans to live. We hope that this summary will inspire you to help save our forests!

Climate change is a problem in the world at the moment, too. Climate change occurs because of the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas into the air. It traps the sun’s heat in. It is mainly caused by human activities such as deforestation, farming, transportation, factories and to make electricity. Climate change causes natural disasters to be worse and more extreme weather.

We are also working on making a children’s book about these topics.

It is really important to stop climate change and deforestation because these harm the biodiversity. When we help with reforestation in a way that works with biodiversity, it helps fight both deforestation and climate change. We hope that you learned something today and will feel like doing something to help out our planet!

Saya, Ylfa, Danya and Hiro

Willow Ecologists