Beachwood High School Hosts Arbor Day Celebration

BEACHWOOD, OH – Beachwood High School hosted an Arbor Day celebration on May 20 that included a tree planting ceremony, marking the final requirement toward earning a Tree Campus K-12 designation. With the tree planting now complete, BHS now awaits official confirmation from the Tree Campus committee regarding the recognition.

The Tree Campus K-12 designation is awarded by the Arbor Day Foundation and recognizes schools that are dedicated to promoting environmental education, engaging students in hands-on learning about trees and ecosystems, fostering community partnerships, and implementing sustainable environmental practices. 

Led by Environmental Sciences teacher Marquiza Russell, with support from City of Beachwood environmental manager Chris Vild and the Beachwood PTO, the Arbor Day celebration highlighted the ways students have explored environmental learning throughout the year, including tree identification, assessing a tree’s health, soil chemistry studies, and carbon sequestration research.

At the Arbor Day celebration, students planted four trees on the high school campus  - Hornbeam, Yellowwood, Tupelo and River Birch - all of which are native to Ohio. In addition, students tagged existing trees on campus to help identify specific tree species, health status, and other relevant information

Student speakers at the Arbor Day celebration included Maverick Edwards who provided the introduction, Dani Gilad with a year-in-review, Val Perez discussing native tree information and Nyla Coppage who highlighted the benefits of trees in our environment.