Climate Change

Group Discusses How Climate Change Will Impact Area, Importance of Trees

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Several local groups came together to host an event called “The Latest News in Climate—and How Trees Help” at the Watertown Free Public Library. The following information was provided by the event organizers:

Jennifer Shakun, an Applied Forest Scientist, and featured speaker at the well-attended “Trees for Climate Change in Watertown” symposium on March 23, brought dramatic news about climate changes in the Northeast. Local leaders, whose talks followed hers, described in-town, tree-related resources and activities available to Watertown residents. Climate Changes in the Northeast

Shakun told attendees that the Northeast has been warming faster than many parts of the world. Since 1895, the average NE temperature has climbed 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit, (1.6 degrees Celsius), which is higher than the average global rise during that time.

Environment

Find Out About Trees and Climate Change at Program in Watertown

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The following information was provided by the event organizers:

Is planting trees in city streets and backyards a good way to help manage the damaging effects of climate change? The answer is an emphatic “Yes!,” according to organizers of “Trees and Climate Change in Watertown,” a free informational program that will be held on Saturday, March 23, 10 a.m.-12 noon, at the Watertown Public Library. Sponsored by the Watertown Environment and Energy Efficiency Committee and co-sponsored by Trees for Watertown and Watertown Faces Climate Change, this community event will focus on the important role trees play in keeping a city healthy, and how citizens and Watertown can work together to improve Watertown’s urban forest. Topics will include:

How trees reduce the effects of heat and severe weather and protect our health and environmentWhat trees to plant: tree species that will do best in our changing climateThe state of Watertown’s urban forest, and city plans for its growth and careAdvice on tree-planting and care, including how to get help in organizing a neighborhood tree-planting party, how to join the Citizens Pruning Corps, and how to request a new street tree to be planted by Watertown

Speakers will include:

Chris Hayward, Watertown’s Forestry Supervisor and Tree WardenJennifer Hushaw Shakun, Applied Forestry Scientist at Manomet: “Our Urban Forests in a Warming World”David Meshoulam and teen participants from Trees for Watertown’s Teens for Trees ProgramLibby Shaw, President of Trees for Watertown

There will also be information tables where community members can connect with a variety of groups working on enhancing, protecting and enjoying Watertown’s natural environment. This program will take place in the Watertown Savings Bank Room, Watertown Public Library, 123 Main St, Watertown.

Around Town

Teens for Trees Surveys 3K Trees, Educate Public on Importance of Street Trees

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Watertown High School students Dylan Hickey, right, and Joe Lessard examine a tree in East Watertown as part of their internship with Teens for Trees. Last summer, a dozen Watertown teens walked over 2 million steps, examined more than 3,000 trees, and shared their knowledge of trees with about 300 people. The teens were part of the second year of Trees for Watertown’s Teens for Trees (TFT) program. The TFT final report was recently released. The goal of this year’s TFT group was to update the town’s street tree index, which was created in 2008.

Environment

Council to Look at Ways to Increase the Number Trees Along Watertown’s Streets

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Having trees on your street can reduce the heat in the summer, prevent flooding when it rains and can even increase property values. However, a study of street trees done by Watertown High School students found that many residents have few or no trees along their blocks. Monday night, the results of a survey of more than 3,400 street trees around Watertown were presented to a joint meeting of the Town Council’s Public Works and Rules & Ordinances subcommittees. The group made a recommendation to the full Town Council to seek ways to use the data to bring trees to streets that lack them. The data was presented by two members of Trees for Watertown, a citizens group committed to planting and maintain trees in town.

Adelaide Sproul

Gifts to Teens for Trees Program Honor Watertown Tree Activist Adelaide Sproul

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The following piece was provided by Trees for Watertown:

TFW Teens for Trees, a six-week summer internship program to teach Watertown teens about the many benefits of maintaining a healthy urban shade tree population, received two generous donations this Fall in honor of former longtime Watertown resident Adelaide Sproul. Adelaide Sproul was a painter, sculptor and writer, and a founder and early president of Trees for Watertown (TFW), a volunteer citizens group founded in 1985 to protect and plant public shade trees and to advocate for a healthy urban forest in Watertown. Ms. Sproul lived and worked on the top floor of a house overlooking Whitney Hill Woods until shortly before her death in 2009 at age 95. “Adelaide was an early proponent of TFW and the prime mover organizing the first Whitney Woods Cleanup Days,” said Paul A, Tamburello Jr., longtime neighbor of Ms. Sproul, who gave a matching-funds gift of $500 in Ms. Sproul’s honor to Trees for Watertown’s fundraising campaign for Teens for Trees. “She would be over the moon about the central project to inventory Watertown’s public shade trees.”

Around Town

Find Out About the State of Watertown’s Street Trees at Trees for Watertown Meeting

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The following announcement was provided by Trees for Watertown:

Please come join us on Saturday, September 29 at 1:30 p.m. at the Watertown Free Public Library for (first) a brief public meeting to vote in Trees For Watertown’s new slate of officers and board members, and then a slide show presentation by the 2018 Teens for Trees participants and Program Director David Meshoulam.  

They’ll be talking about what they learned and experienced this summer, and will present some first graphical results from the 2018 Watertown Tree Inventory. https://www.watertownmanews.com/2018/08/17/teens-track-the-street-trees-around-watertown-during-summer-program/

Here’s the URL for the TFW Teens for Trees webpage:  tfwteensfortrees.org
Here’s the URL for Watertown’s tree inventory:  opentreemap.org/watertownma/map/

Around Town

Teens Track the Street Trees Around Watertown During Summer Program

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Last week, Watertown High School students walked around the streets near Coolidge Square and stopped periodically to get up close and personal with some longtime residents of the area — the street trees. The students are interns in the Teens for Trees program, sponsored by Trees for Watertown. “We are trying to get every single street tree in Watertown on the app,” said 10th grader Liana Rice. “We measure the circumference of the trunk, the health of the tree and the species.” The information is entered into apps on their cellphones.

Schools

Hosmer Students Help Plant a Tree on Campus for Arbor Day

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Rarely does a tree get so much attention, but this week a group of 80 fourth graders from Hosmer Elementary School crowded around a young tree, freshly planted outside the school in honor of Arbor Day. 

Watertown resident and landscape architect David Jay organized the event, and made sure each of the students left with a sapling to plant in their own yard. In past years, Watertown’s Tree Warden organized tree plantings at the town’s elementary schools, but there is no warden at the moment. Jay stepped in this year on behalf of Trees for Watertown, a citizens group which advocates for trees. The dwarf apple tree was in place by the time many students arrived, but a group of children helped Jay remove the grass around the tree, making sure to shake the dirt from the sod back onto the ground around the tree. Then the students shoveled mulch around it.