Today, I went on a field trip with my fifth-grade students to a place called Palmetum. It is located on a hill outside of the city and has a collection of palm trees from around the world! Some are very popular, but some are endangered, which means they are almost all gone. I learned a lot about the different species of trees and what we can do to protect them.
Palm trees come in many shapes and sizes. Generally, we think of palm trees as having a tall, skinny trunk with big floppy leaves at the top. I saw some trees like this. But I also saw some that had a short and fat trunk. I saw some that had spikes on the trunk. And I saw some that had roots growing above the ground!
I thought that it was a super cool field trip! The kids got to walk around and be outside all day learning about nature and how to protect it. The history of this area is also very interesting. It used to be a trash dump in the dirty part of the city, but 40 years ago, the city decided to clean it up. They removed some of the trash and covered the rest with dirt creating the hill. I was shocked that the hill was not natural! It was man-made! It meant that the whole time we were walking around, there were tons and tons of trash buried under our feet!
