Mr. William Sachs, a member of Central Moravian Church, is creating an arboretum on the church grounds. He has been working to identify many of the trees that are located between the Church and the CE building. Mr. Sachs hopes that by identifying and tagging these trees, people will enjoy and appreciate the natural setting on which the church is found. 

Moravian Academy students and their families share this space with the church; it is Mr. Sachs’ goal that our middle school students will partner with him on this project that will benefit the entire community. This collaboration began over the summer when Mrs. Kelton (Spanish) and Mrs. Daniels (Science) met with Mr. Sachs and other CMC church members to learn more about the project. Now that Mr. Sachs has numbered and identified the trees by their common and scientific names, middle school students will begin working on describing and photographing the trees. 

Recently, during our first service group meeting of the school year, the Middle School Sustainability Group students learned first-hand about the project and visited the trees. In the coming months, students will be researching each of the trees to write short descriptions about them; they will also photograph the trees throughout the seasons. Mrs. Kelton’s Spanish students will then work to translate the English information into Spanish. Aluminum tags will be affixed to all of the trees by Mr. Sachs; each tag will contain a QR code that directs users to a website specific to the tree. Middle school students will develop and design the websites for the trees and keep those websites updated with current information.

We are excited about this collaborative project with our friends from Central Moravian Church, and we look forward to helping to sustain our beautiful common grounds for many years to come!