Inglewood High School’s campus is located off busy Manchester Boulevard. In this urban setting, nestled beneath the hum of jets approaching LAX and behind the bustle of traffic on Inglewood’s streets, students are nurturing a baby forest.

Inglewood High’s Green Club, advised by long-time TreePeople teacher Gail Atley, has become the latest TreePeople Satellite Nursery. As part of TreePeople’s Youth Leadership Program, Inglewood students have been planting and caring for acorns of native oaks. With a little help from the students’ patience and diligence, the acorns will sprout, ready to grow into trees.

Once sprouted, the baby oak trees will be given away to elementary school students visiting TreePeople headquarters in Coldwater Canyon Park on class field trips called “Eco-tours.” After learning about the natural cycles of forests and ways to cultivate these cycles in our city, the young Eco-tour students take their seedlings home to plant in yards across the city.

Several schools around Los Angeles have volunteered to plant and care for acorns for the Eco-tour program. These programs help TreePeople support our thriving Eco-tour program and teach high school students the principles of forestry and urban sustainability. Ms. Atley and her students used TreePeople’s Native Plant Project Toolkit to learn about the importance of native plants and trees in local land restoration. If you’d like to receive a Toolkit for your group, you can register as an Eco-Club on our website.

Next, the Green Club will use the Tree Project Toolkit to care for the trees on Inglewood High School’s campus. During the drought, these trees need all the help they can get, and Ms. Atley’s students are excited and ready to lend a hand!