Plant a Tree today

Hundreds of Iowa kids will be planting trees outside their schools and in parks today as part of Arbor Day. Ruth Hitchcock coordinates two programs through the Iowa D-N-R that educate children about the importance of trees.Hitchcock runs “Trees for Kids” in Iowa elementary schools and “Trees for Teens” in the middle schools. The program this year involves more than 95-hundred Iowa teachers and 427-thousand students. She says the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are also getting into the act this year.Hitchcock says at the current rate, the program will see the planting of its one-millionth tree by the year 2005. She was at a Des Moines-area school earlier this week where the kids were very enthused about helping to spruce up the landscape. They planted three pear trees and talked about how the trees would grow through the years and make the school grounds look nicer.In addition to this being Arbor Day, this is also Earth Week.