An Ole Miss student listens to arborist Nathan Lazinksy discuss campus trees
UM Green Initiative organized their Tree Trail Walk on Monday and Tuesday to celebrate Green Week in order to help students better understand the nature surrounding their school.
A variety of people attended the event Tuesday afternoon, led by UM Assistant Superintendent of Landscape Services Nathan Lazinsky.
Prior to the walk, the participants met at the Phi Mu fountain in the Quad. Members of the tour were provided with a tree map, which allowed them to identify the different tree types located on campus.
Lazinsky began the 30-minute walk by telling participants reasons why trees are important to our lives. He said that trees provide enough oxygen for ten people in a year, as well as many other benefits trees provide.
“Last year the Office of Sustainability approached me about what we could do to get students more interested in sustainability on campus, and I suggested that we do a Tree Trail Walk,” Lazinsky said. “It was pretty successful last year, with 80 or so people, that we decided to make it into two different groups this year.”
The tour took place around campus, where Lazinsky took the time to explain what each tree was, how to identify it, and a fun fact about each tree – such as the Osage Orange tree, which was once used in place of barbed wire because it was too strong for an ox to break.
Lazinsky said the Tree Trail Walk attracted both teachers and students.
Political science professor Robert Brown brought his Honors 102 class on the walk as a way to learn more about UM’s campus.
“Sometimes we forget to take time to enjoy how beautiful our campus is,” Brown said. “Since our class is about our relationship with nature, we could take advantage of this opportunity to learn new things.”
Freshman public policy major Alex Messore, a student in Brown’s class, said the information she learned at the tree walk related to what she learned in class.
“Our class is based around the environment, so I think this walk is just putting what we learned into the real world,” Messore said.
Lazinsky said the Office of Sustainability found approximately 30 seeds from the historic Catalpa tree located by the Student Union, which they will be replanting this week.
The replanting ceremony will be noon Friday in the Circle as part of the Arbor Day Celebration for Green Week.
