On Jan. 16, a team of students from Valencia’s West Campus planted trees around Lake Pamela in celebration of Arbor Day.
The students, including members of Valencia Volunteers, the Eco-Club and the Model United Nations Club, worked with members of the college’s grounds crew to plant native trees behind Building 15 and near Lake Pamela. The team also installed a drip irrigation system.
The teams planted trees that are native to Florida, including common persimmon, hackberry, Florida elm, Carolina willow, elderberry, red bud, water oak, and red buckeye. Deborah Green, the college’s director of sustainability, has been working to turn the area around Lake Pamela into an arboretum, a place where trees, shrubs and herbacious palnts are cultivated for scientific and educational purposes. All of the trees planted are being labeled with QR codes, which are linked to information about the species, on the college’s sustainability website.
Arbor Day celebrations and tree-planting will take place on Jan. 30 at the Osceola Campus, and on Feb. 20 at East Campus.
Valencia College has been awarded the prestigious Tree Campus USA designation by the Arbor Day Foundation, and is one of only seven colleges in Florida to achieve this status. Valencia College earned the designation by meeting the required five core standards for sustainable campus forestry: a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and the sponsorship of student service-learning projects. Click here for more information about the Tree Campus USA program.