HANDS-ON EDUCATION
Bell Top Elementary School students continue annual tree tapping tradition
EAST GREENBUSH, N.Y. » Students at Bell Top Elementary School received some hands-on, outside-the-classroom learning experiences as they become maple sugar farmers. They are participating in the school’s annual tree tapping, a tradition that has been in place since 1995.
Bell Top has many sugar maple trees on its grounds, and every year the students choose trees to tap. The maple sap they collect will be processed into maple syrup right on school property, inside the Learning Barn that stands behind the school.
“The Barn was built in 1997, with a grant the school got,” explained firstgrade teacher Melanie Lyte. “The students helped to build it - each one put in a nail. We’re been ‘sugaring’ since about two years before that, when I was a student-teacher here.”
Lyte, who is in charge of organizing the tree tapping each year, also normally organizes the school play and pancake dinner that accompany the project. Due to the pandemic, this year both activities had to be canceled.
“It’s such a shame because normally we have tons of people coming to the pancake dinner,” Lyte said. “It’s a great community event. We get about 120 people from my class alone! And the kids have fun doing the play that I wrote, but this year we just couldn’t. We’re going to have a pancake lunch just for the school instead.”
Fortunately, the pandemic has not stopped students from being able to do the annual tree tapping. In fact, it just might have improved the process. Bell Top is operating on a hybrid schedule, with half of its students in school at a time and the other half learning remotely. While it does mean they have to do twice as many tappings to make sure everyone gets to participate, working with half a class at a time has proven easier for teachers.
Sarah Lussier’s first-grade class eagerly put to practice what they had learned in the classroom when it was their turn to tap trees. First, they had to select the right tree, by identifying it as a sugar maple and determining
if it was the right size for tapping.
How do you know if a tree is the right size? Hug it! If your hands just touch, it’s big enough. If they overlap, the tree is too small, and if they don’t touch at all the tree is too big to tap.
After selecting a tree, the children helped Lussier find the right height for the tap. That’s waist height on an adult, and just a little bit lower than the top of a first grader’s head. They stood back as Lussier drilled a hole into the tree, then all took turns tapping in the spile, the special spout that’s used to direct the flowing sap. This week’s weather conditions are ideal for tapping, and the students were delighted to see sap flowing out of the tree right away.
Next, they attached a collection bucket onto the tree with a hook and put a metal hat over it to protect the sap from weather and insects. After reviewing the steps of their process together, it was onto the next tree.
On the other side of the school grounds, Lyte’s class was getting ready to stack wood outside the Learning Barn, creating a supply that will be used to stoke the fire next week when they boil the sap down to create maple syrup.
“The kids learn so much science from this project,” Lyte said as she collected wood from her students and stacked it. “They get outside, they learn to love nature, they learn states of matter, density, and parts of a tree. They learn math, too, when we talk about water and sugar content of sap and syrup. They learn ratios and percentages.”
“I do this every year to see the looks in the kids’ eyes - the wonder that has nothing to do with technology and is all about nature,” Lyte added. “It makes memories that are such an important part of loving learning. We’re very lucky that the East Greenbush Central School District allows us to do this.”
When asked whether this was something that any school could try doing, Lyte explained that it depends on several factors.
“It’s a really unique experience to the northeast and Canada, and I emphasize that to the kids,” she said. “You have to have enough maple trees and a supportive community. I’m happy to help anyone that wants to learn more about it and get involved.”
Next week, the students will be just as involved in creating maple syrup inside the Learning Barn. They will observe the sap boiling down into syrup and do learning activities related to the process. And when they’re done, they’ll have fresh maple syrup for the school’s upcoming pancake lunch that they can proudly say they made themselves.