Nine-year-old boy plants seed that yields 3 trillion trees
Talk about mighty oaks growing from little acorns! A 9-year-old’s homework assignment has led to the world’s most comprehensive tree-counting project, which in turn stands to increase the value of upcoming missions from NASA and other space agencies.
Felix Finkbeiner was a fourth-grade student in Bavaria in 2007 when his teacher assigned a classroom presentation on climate change. His research brought him to the story of Wangari Maathai of Kenya, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Among other accomplishments, she started a grassroots movement to counter deforestation and inspired the United Nations Environment Programme’s Billion Tree Campaign.
Felix challenged his classmates—and ultimately, children throughout the world—to plant a million trees in each country, an idea that grew into an international youth organization called “Plant-for-the-Planet.” In 2011, the UNEP turned its Billion Tree Campaign over to the organization Felix had started. By that time, the UN program had celebrated the planting of 12 billion trees.
Twelve billion trees is a lot, but how much does it increase the world’s tree population? By a few percent? By half? No one knew. Enter Tom Crowther, then a postdoc at Yale.
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2393/
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