Editor’s Note: The Colfax Garden Club selected the following essays as the top three entries in a recent Arbor Day essay contest.
First Place: Hannah Cerri
Trees help the environment in lots of ways, the most important ones are oxygen and food.
Trees are also good for our health, and the health of the planet.
Many animals, such as birds, squirrels, raccoons and a large amount of insects, spend much of their lives in trees.
Trees provide them shelter from the weather and from enemies. Trees provide food in the form of leaves, bark, and roots, even dead trees provide shelter and food for many insects.
Our parks, playgrounds and backyards are filled with trees. Trees provide shade in the summer to help cool people. In the winter, they block wind to help warm our people.
As a matter of fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states that trees can reduce bothersome noise and dust by up to 50 percent. The quality of our environment the air, soil and water depends on the roles trees play. Their roots draw it from the soil and their leaves feed our soil.
Trees clean the air we breathe by taking in carbon dioxide through the leaves and then giving us oxygen we need to breathe.
If trees didn’t breathe, neither could we. Roots help hold soil in place to prevent erosion which not only saves soil, but also keeps our waterways cleaner.
Furniture and many other obvious items inside homes are also made from wood. However, wood is not the only product that comes from trees. Ground up wood is used to make paper for magazines, newspapers, and candy wrappers. Sap, is used to make maple syrup, chewing gum, and crayons, paint, and soap. Leaves and roots provide oils for medicines too.
Trees are important to every part of our lives, and who knows what would happen if we did not take care of them. We should restore and replant forests in order for trees to help the environment and us.
Second Place: David Hoffman
Have you ever wondered what trees do for our environment? In this essay I will go over what trees contribute to their communities and how they are important to all living things. Trees can do many amazing things like provide food, oxygen and much more.
The most important thing trees do for us is they provide us oxygen and food.
They provide wood for us to build shelter. The tree’s wood provides us with warmth. Medicines are made from pulp made from the bark in some trees. Trees provide us with wood to make paper.
Trees control noise pollution like a stone wall.
Trees can help cleanse the air by lowering the temperature, through respiration, and by retaining particulates. Trees are carbon sink because in order to produce food a tree absorbs and locks away carbon dioxide in the wood, roots, and leaves. Trees clean the soil by filtering the sewage and farm chemicals. Trees act as windbreaks so the trees can lower the heating bills up to 30 percent. Trees can increase property values based on how beautiful the trees are. Trees fight soil erosion because the trees roots bind the soil and their leaves break the force of wind and rain on the soil. Trees slow storm water runoff by underground water-holding aquifers is recharged with this slowing down of water runoff.
This is how trees help the environment essay. This essay has told everyone the most important things trees do which are to provide oxygen, food, wood for shelter, warmth, medicine, and paper.
Third Place: Blake Hawkins
I think trees are good for the environment because they provide oxygen, shelter for animals, and food for people and animals.
Humans and wildlife need trees to survive.
Trees are like the lungs of the planet.
They take in carbon dioxide and let out oxygen, which is known as photosynthesis. A full-grown tree makes enough oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year. People and animals could not live without trees.
Trees are very important to animals because they give them a place to live.
Hundreds of living creatures call trees their home. Branches covered in leaves keep animals out of the reach of predators. Animals can also hide food from other animals in a tree and it makes them feel safe.
Trees grow food for animals and people. This is important because we need food to live. Many animals, such as elephants, koalas and giraffes eat tree leaves for nourishment. Monkeys eat flowers from trees and birds eat the nectar. Trees also produce fruit that people and animals both enjoy. When animals eat fruit from the trees it helps spread the seeds of the fruit all across the land.
There are many important needs for trees, so I hope you will help take care of them. Because if you take care of the trees they will last longer and they will take care of you.