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‘Appleseedz’ teaches students about trees
By Jeff Parish
The Paris News
Published May 18, 2004
Trees are everywhere.
That’s the lesson Tim Womick passed on to Stone Middle School sixth-grade students Monday afternoon.
Womick, founder of Tree Family, a non-profit education group, has spent more than a decade traveling across the United States and around the world, planting trees and knowledge wherever he goes. He has been called a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, a name given John Chapman, who traveled far and wide in the U.S. during the 18th century. Womick has been given a more modern-day moniker — Appleseedz.
His hour-long program, called Trail of Trees, presents facts and figures to the audience. Womick doesn’t just hand his audience the information, he makes them work for it.
The lesson started as students were filing into the Stone Middle School gym. Womick started beating on a large African drum, getting students to clap with him. The beat ranged from a resounding boom as he slammed the heel of his hand into the skin to a syncopated whisper as he lightly tapped the drum. After all the students arrived and introductions were made, Womick held his drum up.
“What is this I’m beating on?” he asked.
“A drum,” the students yelled.
“What is it mostly made of?”
“Wood!”
“Where do we get wood?”
“Trees!” students shouted.
Womick repeated the final question three times, punctuating each answer with a booming note from his drum. And so began the recurring theme of the lesson Appleseedz sought to teach students.
He asked audience members to answer the question: What cool things do we get from trees? Many provided their own answers. Some had to be guided. Each response brought a small lesson of its own as the student was given a sign with that topic on it and asked to sit in one of several chairs lined up front.
Womick, founder of Tree Family, a non-profit education group, has spent more than a decade traveling across the United States and around the world, planting trees and knowledge wherever he goes. He has been called a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, a name given John Chapman, who traveled far and wide in the U.S. during the 18th century. Womick has been given a more modern-day moniker — Appleseedz.
His hour-long program, called Trail of Trees, presents facts and figures to the audience. Womick doesn’t just hand his audience the information, he makes them work for it.
The lesson started as students were filing into the Stone Middle School gym. Womick started beating on a large African drum, getting students to clap with him. The beat ranged from a resounding boom as he slammed the heel of his hand into the skin to a syncopated whisper as he lightly tapped the drum. After all the students arrived and introductions were made, Womick held his drum up.
“What is this I’m beating on?” he asked.
“A drum,” the students yelled.
“What is it mostly made of?”
“Wood!”
“Where do we get wood?”
“Trees!” students shouted.
Womick repeated the final question three times, punctuating each answer with a booming note from his drum. And so began the recurring theme of the lesson Appleseedz sought to teach students.
He asked audience members to answer the question: What cool things do we get from trees? Many provided their own answers. Some had to be guided. Each response brought a small lesson of its own as the student was given a sign with that topic on it and asked to sit in one of several chairs lined up front.
After hearing that trees provide clean air, students learned Paris is an urban forest, a city with trees in it. Cars burn fossil fuels and release particulate pollution. Trees absorb much of that pollution and purify the air.
An urban forest is also a heat island, Womick said. Shade from trees helps alleviate that. The sun shining on asphalt can raise the temperature in the center of a city as much as eight degrees higher than a place where there is a lot of trees.
Trees provide clothing and food, as well. Womick had one student put on a blue and turquoise floral print Rayon dress. Rayon is made from cellulose, a wood fiber that is found in many products, from fabric to film to plastic to ice cream.
“Cellulose is the most abundant organic substance on planet Earth,” he said.
There were science lessons involved. Womick explained photosynthesis, an energy transfer where the tree takes in water from the ground, carbon dioxide from the air and energy from the sun and makes its own food. Students learned how plants’ root systems prevent soil erosion. Trees also help provide water through a process called transpiration, where water passes through the leaves and into the atmosphere.
In nature, trees provide shelter for animals and are the only source for more trees. There is a wide variety of other things that come from trees, including hardwood products, about a quarter of the medicine in this country and paper.
A self-described tree hugger, Womick asked the students if it was OK to chop down a tree. Varying answers of “yes” and “no” came from the audience.
“If you say ‘no,’ I want to discuss with you your relationship with this little product here,” he said, holding up a roll of toilet paper. “I’m probably the biggest tree hugger in this room, but check this out — we have all kinds of jobs and products because of trees.”
The North Carolina native came to town thanks to the efforts of Keep Paris Beautiful.
“We’ve been trying to find something to get the schools involved,” Keep Paris Beautiful Education Committee chairman Richard Manning said. “This is kind of a golden opportunity for Paris and Lamar County to have a program like this come on through.”
Paris Community Development Director Lisa Wright, a member of the education committee, found out about Womick’s program on the Internet and lined up the programs here. Stuart Crow of Dallas paid to have Appleseedz come to Paris.
Crow first met Womick several years ago when Womick was a spokesman for the National Tree Trust. Crow’s wife is on the trust’s board of directors.
“I don’t know how much they’re going to bring out of this, but they’re going to be presented a lot of facts in the next 45 minutes,” Crow said prior to the session’s start. “This is taught in an environment that makes it hip, cool and fun.”
It seemed to work.
Near the end, Womick had his student helpers hide their signs and asked the audience what trees provide. The Stone Middle School students named the entire list and many of the facts Appleseedz had provided.
More presentations were scheduled today at Aikin Elementary School and Justiss Elementary School.
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