Trees Return to School

Abstract

Written by a staff member of Medellín's Secretariat of the Environment, this article presents the Environmental Builders program, in which 2,000 children and young people from 101 public educational institutions in Medellín participate in the landscape and environmental transformation of their school surroundings. The author describes how these students, trained as environmental leaders, identify problems in their territories and carry out activities such as solid-waste separation and planting native trees in previously bare spaces. The text documents how incorporating trees as a pedagogical focus has enabled curricular integration across different fields of knowledge, strengthening students' sense of belonging to their school community.