While neglected and decreasing in population, trees are a crucial part of Nashville that do not require waiting until the Spring to learn about them. – Carlos Espinoza
We are a team of four high school students – Brady, Carlos, Jaxon, and Roger – from the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt’s (SSMV) class of 2023 who recently got the opportunity to work with Metro Government under the Socket initiative. Through our collaboration, we have gained a lot of insight about Nashville's sustainability efforts and Socket’s mission.
From our initial meetings with the Department of General Services, we first learned a lot about the benefits of trees in our community and the importance of Root Nashville’s campaign to plant 500,000 trees by the year 2050. For example, one of the lesser-known benefits is that trees can not only provide shade and cooling in the summer, but also allow sunlight to hit homes more due to their lack of leaves during the winter. In addition, we acquired a better understanding of how the increasing rate of urbanization of Nashville is causing an alarming loss of trees. We also took this time to grasp the primary purpose of our collaboration: creating a database and map of tree locations, sizes, and species to allow city staff to understand how they impact stormwater management and greenhouse gas emissions in different areas of Nashville.
Before our trips to different sites for data collection, we had to make some preparations. We assimilated the general procedure for measuring tree diameters: taking a diameter tape around the trunk and branches at 4.5 feet from the ground (known as the diameter breast height). This often required us to wrap our arms around the tree to connect the ends of the diameter tape, so we often had to “hug” the trees (hence this blog’s title). We also learned how to measure trees with exceptional circumstances, such as when there were more than six branches or when there was a swell at diameter breast height. This overall allowed us to build experience with the hands-on work that arborists and environmentalists conduct to better understand our habitat. In our preparations, we also developed our organizational skills by making campus walk plans before we actually traversed them–this helped increase our efficiency.
Now that we were ready to begin our field work, we needed a mode of transportation to get us to the widely varying locations. Using our Metro Nashville Public School IDs, we were able to travel for free using Nashville’s public transportation system, known as WeGo Public Transit. In this way, we built familiarity with the city and its public transportation. We were very surprised how well-connected the system of transportation was. At the beginning of each of our days of fieldwork, we were able to very easily check which buses would send us to our destination and at what times.
This field work ended up being one of our favorite aspects of the project. We got a better feel for applying the scientific concepts we had learned in the classroom. Several of us also gained more awareness about the kinds of trees around us and in our communities. We gained so much familiarity with the distinct characteristics of particular tree species; for example, we are now able to distinguish the branching shape of a cherry tree from that of an elm, and we can notice the difference in the bark between an oak and a birch tree. There are now times when we may recognize certain species of trees as we’re just going about our day. We also learned to recognize mold, rot, and infestations, noting the risks that trees with such health issues posed. All of this has really allowed us to gain appreciation for the influence trees have on our surroundings.
Our collaboration with Metro Government and the Socket program ultimately gave us an opportunity to appreciate lesser-known aspects of trees, enhance our communication and collaboration skills, and obtain first-hand experience in using science not only abstractly but also to create real noteworthy benefits for a sustainable future. We hope that the results of this project as well as the Socket initiative can bring more public awareness to the role of trees in our community and help bring aid to Root Nashville’s cause to make Nashville an even more enjoyable, healthy city.
This blog was authored by SSMV students Brady Huneycutt, Carlos Espinoza, Jaxon Draughon, and Roger Chen.