South Yorkshire gets greener as schools tap into trees through ‘Plant it, love it’ project

South Yorkshire is about to get greener as eight schools in Sheffield and three in Rotherham take part in a special tree planting project to celebrate National Tree Week.

The ‘Plant it, love it’ project organised by the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership and Woodland Trust will use tree planting as a way to tap into the primary age pupils, raising awareness of the importance of trees and encouraging young people to care for our green environment.

Peter Machan, education officer for the South Yorkshire Forest explains: “As the effects of climate change due to human activity become evident around the world - and even locally with the flooding earlier this year - it has never been more vital to explain the importance of trees and to impart a sense of care for the environment to children from an early age.”

Peter, a former head teacher himself, will be visiting all eleven schools next week where an informal education session will be followed by some hands-on action as the pupils get to plant trees in their school grounds. “Each school will be receiving 30 trees,” said Peter, “so there’s plenty of opportunity for all the children to get involved, and the idea of ‘Plant it, love it’ is that this involvement will continue as the trees grow.”

The first schools to ‘Plant it, love it’ will be Greenhill Primary in Sheffield and Brinsworth Howarth Primary in Rotherham.

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