April 16 brought with it a new opportunity for our students: Tree planting from seeds. The ASD ES Roots & Shoots program – joined by one young boy who had indicated an interest in planting tress to ASD’s campus – congregated in our Sustainable Garden to plant the UAE national tree: Ghaf trees!
Typically found around the Gulf Coast desert environments the ghaf tree has adapted really well through its ability to utilize both a really deep root structure (up to 60 meters deep) or though the ability to “open” it’s trunk during the night to absorb humidity. Cool, right?!
After a short introduction by Tatiana Antonelli from Goumbook our students and parents took on the task of getting sand and water, labeling bags and planting the seeds. In all 17 ghaf trees were planted and will stay in the garden until they are old enough to be either planted somewhere else permanently or be moved to the Goumbook nursery.
The wonderful part of the story is that we have a new partner to work with for the foreseeable future with potential curricular connections to all sorts of sustainability and ecology-based elements!
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