The Arboretum Trust
Do you know Meet a Tree? The exercise where you blindfold one kid and their buddy leads them to a tree. Then, after the blindfolded is removed, the child goes and finds their tree. Yawn.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen kids enjoy this. I believe they do get some value out of it. I also believe that many outdoor educators abuse this like they do all other stock and file-card activities. It’s something for kids to do. It’s in the nearly official Environmental Educator’s Game Guide.
I’m an animal tracker. I teach it to both kids and adults. I use all my facilities and gut instincts to follow bears, cougars and bobcats across epic landscapes. I deftly understand the reasoning behind sensory based curriculum. It’s great that these kinesthetic activities begin to receive more and more credibility in a world of water quality testing and DBH. Unfortunately any game or activity can also be a crutch for educators.
That’s where “Meet a Tree” and other activities of their ilk can go wrong. The story ceases to be compelling even for the educator. They become motions we can go through to placate a field, a world of standardization and little risk. We need to stop fooling ourselves. In this exercise folks may be meeting a tree but they aren’t really knowing it. For that to happen we need a more compelling and greater breadth of experience. You need to know how its dead branches light a fire either by friction or with tinder. If it’s edible you need to taste it. If it needs caretaking, figure out how to tend to it. I am not saying to stop “meeting a tree”, I am saying don’t stop there.
Tony Deis is the founder and “lead cylon” at Trackers Earth/TrackersNW in 
Portland, Oregon.
Wow Tony, did you get under my skin (and get my attention)! You knocked the first activity that got me into environmental education! As a high school student working at a boy scout camp in Pennsylvania, I lead cub scouts and their parents through the Meet a Tree activity. I was hooked when I saw how much the kids loved being outside sensing nature! Now 18 years later, I have learned a great deal more stock and file-card activities as a way to springboard into higher-level inquiry in the outdoors. I have also found these activities are integral to getting new educators outside with their kids (and hopefully seeing the true value of teaching outside). So when you say, “I am not saying to stop “meeting a tree”, I am saying don’t stop there”, I completely agree! Great article! Thanks for making me think about how far I’ve come and how far our profession has come!
Thanks, the feedback is appreciated. Of course the goal is to be provocative with the title, I was never a “camper” nor “student” of outdoor education (8 years of Catholic School;). So I camp in as a volunteer teacher and teenager looking to find real experiences. The games did not cut it.