How many trees are there at Radford?

By Mrs Louise Evans and Ms Agnes Kopras-Ianson, Sustainability Working Group members

Radford College is working towards the attainment of Sustainable School status, and, thanks to our Year 8 Geography students, we are now one critical step closer.

Our Year 8 geographers have completed a vegetation audit and have collected important data about the range and density of vegetation on the Radford College campus.

To gather this data our students worked in small groups and set about counting all the trees, shrubs and groundcovers on the school site. A big job!

We were fortunate to have the assistance of Ms Tracey Bool, a horticulturalist who works with Sustainable Schools ACT, to help our students differentiate between native and non-native vegetation.

Our geographers were especially surprised by the number of large canopy trees we have on campus. A tree needs to be at least 6 meters tall to classify as a canopy tree and our tally shows nearly 700 trees currently meeting this height criteria, with many more newly planted trees that will reach canopy status within 5 – 10 years. Canopy trees are critical for our birds and mammals, so we’d love to see more on campus.

While the vegetation audit showed that we have far greater numbers of plants than our students first thought, we all agree there is room for plenty more, especially in our newer building zones.

Results of the vegetation audit:

Indigenous trees over 6m – 326

Exotic trees over 6m – 253

Indigenous trees under 6 m – 1510

Exotic trees under 6 m – 1070

Planted in the last 12 months – 205

Ground plants – 630

Animals – 173

Great work Year 8 Geography!