McAllen’s ongoing efforts to grow more trees within its urban landscape got a significant boost recently with the Texas A&M Forest Service awarding the local school district a $2.7 million grant.

The grant will benefit seven elementary schools that are part of the McAllen Independent School District. Each campus will receive $390,000 to purchase and plant trees over the next three years from the $2,730,000 grant. A key goal at each campus is to grow the percentage of tree canopies at the seven elementary schools – which are Alvarez, Fields, Jackson, Roosevelt, Sam Houston, Seguin and Wilson.

Currently, the average McAllen elementary school has trees covering 10 percent or less of campus grounds. With the trees to be provided by the Texas A&M grant, the goal is to have the seven McAllen schools grow their percentage of tree canopies to 30 percent on their individual campuses.

“It’s vitally important that we plant thousands of trees every year as we work toward encouraging children to be good stewards of our land,’’ said Collen Hook, the executive director of McAllen’s Quinta Mazatlan, an urban and wildlife center. “We knew forestation had to be a top priority in helping to cool our cities.’’

Leveraging Learning 

The early July announcement of the Texas A&M grant was announced at Quinta Mazatlan to highlight partnerships between the city and school district on projects connected to parks and environmental education.

The event was attended by principals of the seven McAllen elementary schools along with students from Sam Houston. Jessica Lowe, the principal of Sam Houston, spoke of “leveraging student observations” by turning the shaded canopies of the new trees into outdoor classrooms. Lowe believes getting outside of traditional classrooms can boost the learning of the sciences, agriculture, history and conservation.

“A student can learn from a textbook,” Lowe said. “Adding the schoolyard forests will enable us to incorporate that learning into hands-on experience for our students.”

The active sort of outdoors learning as described by Lowe and other educators was amplified by students attending the early July event. 

“Having outdoor learning spaces sounds like so much fun,” said Abigail Pena, a Sam Houston Elementary student. “I’m excited to help grow a tiny forest. We can all become junior scientists in working to help the environment for everyone.”

Adding to ‘Urban Forest’

The trees to be planted at the McAllen schools add to the city’s urban forest efforts of recent years.

The Parks and Recreation Department has a horticultural supervisor dedicated to overseeing the growth of vegetation and green spaces in the city. McAllen, just through its local efforts, seeks to plant more than 150 trees yearly in its parks, near rainwater detention ponds and in close proximity to schools. The new program announced by the school district via the A&M grant augments what the city is already doing.

A local pharmacist and community leader, Danny Vela, says making the city’s youth more environmentally aware is the best way to keep projects like the tree planting efforts going into the future.

“We need a bench to come in and put projects like this one into place,” said Vela, who spoke at the early July event in representing the board that oversees Quinta Mazatlan operations. “We know most of our schools have low canopies, so with this grant we’ll address that while teaching our students how to address rising temperatures by showing them there is a solution.”