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East High School Green Guard Stewards

2016 – 2018

In 2016 HCA launched the Green Guard Stewardship Program at East High School. Program participants included students originally from countries including Nepal, Rwanda, Kenya, and Cuba. Along with some Kansas City natives, the group with a wide range of life experiences and personal values all contributed their time and energy to improving and protecting the woodland on their school campus.


East High School has a 13-acre patch of forest that had been forgotten; it was overgrown and a dumping ground for trash. The 2016 East High School Green Guard stewards restored part of the area by saving trees from the death by grape vine. This year’s stewards will be restoring the outdoor classroom to be used by the students and teachers at East High School.


Through partnership with the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Tree Resource Improvement and Maintenance (TRIM) grant program, HCA contracted Molly Gosnell, Midwest GeoInfo, to produce a tree inventory of the East High School forest. The 2017 East High stewards are using this inventory to determine what trees will need to be removed and what trees should stay based on tree health and whether the tree is an invasive species. Invasive species are harmful to forested areas because they out-compete native trees and would eventually turn the forest into a monoculture, reducing food and habitat diversity for wildlife. The stewards will also use information from the inventory to provide education about the ecological and health benefits of the trees in the forest patch. 

 

2018 Update

Molly Gosnell of Midwest GeoInfo has finished the tree inventory of forest adjacent to J.A. Rogers and Trailwoods Elementaries. Our Blue Valley Green Guard Stewards have already started improving the health of this of this forest! This work was possible through the support of the Missouri Department of Conservation. We have had 20 stewards graduate throughout 2018.

 
See the iTree Inventory Report Here.
 
 
 
2017 Update
Click on the links below to view the results of  the East High School tree inventory data sponsored by the 2016 Missouri Department of Conservation's Tree Resource Improvement Maintenance grant.

If  you would like to learn more about the MDC TRIM grant visit their webpage here for more information. 

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