Starting small

UMD graduate helps elementary school students plant 1,000 trees

Rows of third through fifth graders climb the hill behind Lowell Elementary School above the Duluth Heights neighborhood. The sky is a ruddy blanket of clouds, threatening to rain, but the assembled students, teachers, and volunteers aren’t deterred. They’re here to plant trees. At the center is Gavin Buersken (‘24), a recent alum of the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) and organizer of the event, which is his last project as a student at UMD.

A crowd of elementary school children walking away, towards Lowell Elementary School with water tower in the background.
Lowell Elementary School children gather in a crowd, excited to help plant trees. 

The crowd of soon-to-be-planters is a flurry of energy. They laugh, talk, and show off for camera crews and a group of volunteers, mostly from UMD, made up of Buersken’s friends, supporters, and folks from UMD’s Office of Sustainability.

Buersken settles the crowd and asks, “who here has planted a tree before?” The students are now quiet and engaged, and a few tentative hands go up. “A couple? Awesome. Well, we're going to plant a lot today.” 

This is the second year Buersken’s organized the tree planting. During that time, the elementary students and a group of largely UMD volunteers have planted over 1,600 trees at three Duluth area schools. The goal of this project is to plant trees, but more importantly, Buersken wants to show the younger generation that they can make a positive impact on the environment. 

“It all just kind of started out of, like, what can I do to make an impact?” says Buersken.

Through his classes and by engaging with his professors, he realized he could achieve that impact by planting trees, and he could multiply those efforts by teaching others how to do the same.

Two volunteers kneel near a hole in the ground, preparing to plant a sapling.
Matthew van Wageningen and Jonna Korpi of UMD's Office of Sustainability, prepare to plant their trees.

Jonna Korpi, director of the Office of Sustainability at UMD, is helping with the Lowell planting. “Gavin had this idea to reforest as much as he could during his time at UMD,” she says. Though she’s here to help facilitate, Korpi quickly points out that this event was driven, coordinated, and made possible because of Buersken. “Gavin has just been so passionate and so motivated to get everything organized and work with the schools, and it’s been great,” she says.

And while this wasn’t an assignment or a graduation requirement, Buersken was able to put his learning and Biology major to work. “This was a passion project for Gavin outside of class,” Korpi says, “but he's also used his lab time in biology to grow tree seedlings and learn how that process works.”

Laid out across the hill beside Lowell’s woods are hundreds of starter trees, some grown in the lab by Buersken himself. They vary in appearance from green bunches of needle-covered spruce to unassuming piles of sticks and roots that are actually baby sugar maples. Arranged in handful-size clumps, they’re ready to be planted by these elementary school students.

Recent UMD graduate stands in foreground, with holes prepared for tree planting and volunteers circled around them in the background.
UMD alum, Gavin Buersken ('24), teaches a group of volunteers how to plant trees. 

Also here from the Office of Sustainability is Sustainability Coordinator Matthew van Wageningen. “To see a student be so involved and get to see them really make a mark on the community outside of UMD, working with student groups like EcoReps, and working in their academics and tying all that together, has been really great,” he says.

Back with the students, Buersken demonstrates the process of tree planting. He narrates each step so these little conservationists can go out and plant on their own. The students watch quietly, responding to his questions, and are eager to get to work.

Buersken sinks the planting bar into the ground with a few stout jumps. Straightening the roots of a tree with his hands, he guides them into the divot he’s just created in the ground. Once down far enough into the soil, he holds the small tree in place, pushing the dirt up around it, then pressing it flat with the heel of his shoe. The seedling is now secure and ready to begin its new life in the ground. 

Side profile of UMD graduate, Gavin Buersken, smiling and walking with a seedling in his hand.
Gavin Buersken smiles, ready to inspire the next generation of conservationists.  

“And that,” he says, stepping back from the freshly planted spruce, “is how you plant a tree.” He wipes the dirt from his hands, and the crowd breaks out in cheers and applause.

From there, the elementary students pair up with a volunteer and head off to plant trees using their own hands in their elementary school’s backyard forest. 

“The biggest takeaway that I hope the students get from this project,” Buersken says, is “just that little spark in their mind.” It’s a new experience for most and something that’s likely to stick with them. And just like this small act of planting these seedlings may someday grow to become tall trees, Buersken hopes the memories from today’s planting may grow into these students’ desire to help the environment in the future.

“It's as simple as just getting out here for an hour or so and planting some trees.”