On a rainy Monday morning, eleven Experience Learning staff set out on a tree planting project. Their mission was to plant 2,000 hardwoods on a scenic slope overlooking Cherry Grove, WV. The project, a partnership with The Nature Conservancy, was to help generate habitat and plant native species in former pastureland. After two days, and several coatings of mud, all the trees were in the ground and the vast meadow was set up to become forest once again.
Over the past week, The Nature Conservancy has enabled both students and staff at Experience Learning to plant vast quantities of native species. The Burley Middle School brought 32 energetic students from Charlottesville, VA up the steep incline to plant native spruce trees as a part of their 6th grade expedition. Spruce trees once covered over a million acres of West Virginia’s forest, and with the help of The Nature Conservancy and Burley Middle School, hopefully new corridors of spruce will grow and help The Spruce Knob Mountain center continue live up to its name!