About a week or two ago, we did a tree planting activity with an organization called Keep Durham Beautiful at a place called Hillside Park. Keep Durham Beautiful actually works throughout the entire city of Durham. They taught us how to plant a tree and a bit of history about our location. Hillside Park was given to Durham by John Sprunt Hill. After that, in 1922, a school called Hillside Park High School was built. Also, they built the Algonquin Club, a community center for black residents of Durham.

We planted trees to provide shade, oxygen, and to purify the water. They taught us how to dig a 1-foot-deep hole with a shovel efficiently, instead of just having us sit out there for hours, digging up a single blade of grass at a time. After that, we took the already-prepared tree out of a bucket and shriveled up the bottom, which was covered in dirt and roots. We spread out the roots to make it so it would have easier access to water. Then, we set the tree into the hole, and covered it back up with the dirt we dug out. And just to make this worse, a storm blew in while we were digging. We all had to huddle under a huge tree. Lastly, we poured a ring of mulch and attached a plastic tube around the tree, to protect it from things like lawnmowers. We were frozen to the skin when we got back to school, but it was a lot of fun and worth it!