Once, while the sage, Honi, was walking along a road, he saw an old man planting a carob tree.  Honi asked him:  “How many years will it take for this tree to give forth its fruit?”  The man answered that it would require 70 years.  Honi asked:  “Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?”  The man answered:  “I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me.  So, too, will I plant for my children.”  (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 23a)

Teaching conservation to young children can be hard. The idea that some things are finite can be a difficult concept for anyone, let alone children. That’s why I love the idea behind The Blue Trees project.

The Blue Trees is a project by Egyptian-born artist Konstantin Dimopoulos, which brings environmental consciousness and social action together in a uniquely beautiful and captivating installation. In this internationally renowned event, a series of trees are colored with a water-based, environmentally safe, blue pigment, transforming the trees into sculpture. What was once taken for granted and unseen suddenly comes to the forefront of our attention and is the impetus for dialogue about global deforestation and its impact on world ecology, and how we individually and collectively shape the natural world around us. –The Blue Trees

Just imagine a school yard’s trees covered in paint, yarn, fabric, ribbons or anything else children can use to decorate trees. The ability to capture a child’s attention and fill them with curiosity and wonderment is a powerful tactic in teaching them a concept. In Judaism there is a value Tikkun Olam, to repair the world. This value not only focuses on the future and preservation but also on protecting and fixing the current world. This concept can be applied to many different actions: justice, showing empathy, hospitality, as well as protecting the environment.

Laying the foundation for children who care for their environment, including trees, can start at a young age. While children may not be able to fully understand the impact they have on the environment, they can be taught to notice, love and care for nature, which is the first step in protecting it. Taking something that children see everyday, such as trees, something that may have become mundane and blended into the background of daily life and making it vibrant and unique, just like The Blue Trees, can help capture a child’s attention.