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Sonoma Charter School students take part in Arbor Day project

charter school arbor day
The Sonoma Charter School (SCS) eighth-grade Youth Philanthropy Class planted two trees with the Waterboxx, a new invention for irrigation, in conjunction with Cittaslow Sonoma Valley’s Pollinator Project. The students’ demonstration took place as part of the Arbor Day celebration at the Sonoma Community Center on Saturday, March 13.

The Waterboxx demonstration project is one of two local community environmental projects chosen by the Youth Philanthropy class. The SCS philanthropy class is focusing on projects to create environmental and social change in global, local and school issues. The students found the Waterboxx invention of interest, as it could be part of the global and local solution to food shortages and global warming issues in arid regions.

The Waterboxx is an inexpensive plastic box that could, if the calculations of Dutch businessman, horticulturalist and inventor Pieter Hoff are correct, be a way to help boost food production and medicines as well as combat erosion and capture CO2 in arid land. The presence of the box on top of the soil eliminates evaporation and allows for capillary action to draw moisture out of dry soil, further enhancing the development of roots in seedling plants.

Hoff’s remarkably simple Waterboxx can be adapted to virtually any terrain and is currently installed on 3,500 fruit tree saplings in the Sahara Desert of Morocco where, three years after being planting in an arid atmosphere, almost 90 percent of the young trees are thriving.

Hoff is now working with Mondavi Winery and Clos Pegase on vineyard installation, the Sonoma Ecology Center will be testing the devices in the Sonoma Valley and Fran Meininger, executive director of the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, said she plans to pursue installation of the boxes at the school gardens planned for each school site in the district.