Sixth Form Tree Conference

On Tuesday, the Rumble Museum at Cheney School organised a Tree Conference for 150 young people aged 16 to 17. Students started the day in woodland around the city, where they were encouraged to soak in the early morning atmosphere and sounds, and look around at the trees and the wildlife. Everyone also took photographs of their favourite trees and signs of spring.

There was then an opening talk about Remarkable Trees by Professor Yadvinder Mahli CBE from the University of Oxford. Yadvinder spoke about how trees displayed intelligence in the sense of solving problems, though over a much longer timeframe than humans. He gave us a tour of some of his favourite trees, including a tree in the rainforests in Congo which produced a yellow fruit eaten by forest elephants. 

For the rest of the day, students were in groups of their choice, taking part in a range of workshops delivered by experts. These workshops included identifying tree DNA with Henry Hung and exploring Dendrochronology with Jennice Singh, both from the University of Oxford. Students also explored Tree Medicine through artefacts from the History of Science Museum and Multaka volunteers, and trees and well-being with Dr Jess Fisher and Dr Gail Austen from the University of Kent’s Ecology Department. 

From a creative angle, students wrote tree poems with local author Julia Golding, created wood and glass mosaics with Becky Paton, made tree prints on the Rumble Museum's Albion Press with Bodleian Library printmaker Richard Lawrence, and took part in rush weaving with Katrina Green. Students also created tree art with local artist Emma Coleman-Jones, and made a film about trees with Film Oxford. 

On our own site, students explored moths and trees with Dr Liam Crowley (including discovering four species of moths on site overnight), and took part in a tree planting workshop with George, Stuart and Tom from the Tree Planting and Aftercare Council Services, which culminated in planting three new trees on the school site (a maple, a copper beech and a Scots pine). Two of the trees were kindly donated by ‘Rosara at Nicholsons’, and the Scots pine was grown from seed by Paul Spicer in 2021. 

It was a fascinating day exploring the science and beauty of trees, and we are very grateful indeed to our speaker, workshop runners, and everyone who took part in any way.