As winter turns to spring, the sugar maple trees at the Brewster Central School District show signs they are ready to be tapped.
Fourth-graders recently trudged out in boots to the best sugar maple on campus, next to the JFK Elementary School parking lot by the football field. The ground was soft mud, but no one minded as they gathered around the tree.
“How can students tell this is a good tree?” asked teacher Michelle Maselli.
The answers were varied:
“The canopy is large.”
“It looks sturdy.”
“There is lichen growing on the trunk, which is a sign of clean air in Brewster.”
“The shape of the canopy.”
Maselli then asked students to make the shape of the branches with their hands.
“The branches are V-shaped,” she said. “And there are red buds at the ends of the branches, which means the tree is ready.”
At C.V. Starr Intermediate, the tradition is 40 years old, with parents of students having tapped the same trees with the same tools. The unit is part of their study of the living history of New York, starting with native Americans and ending with the colonists.
On Facebook, Lindsey Sidcheid wrote: “So glad this is still happening! One of my favorite memories from elementary school! I was telling my current students about it recently because we just had a pancake breakfast as a reward – so fun the kids are still experiencing this.”
Two classes of fourth-graders each turned the drill, which Maselli reminded them is a “simple machine.” They cleaned out the hole with a metal wire, tapped the tree, hung the bucket, and covered it to protect it from rainwater.
The process is hands-on and exciting from the first wood shavings crumbling out of the hole, to the steady drips of sap running.
“It looks like water!” said Camilla.
After the sap is all collected, it will get boiled down – just as the native Americans and early colonists did it – and turned into maple syrup. And after that, just like BCSD students have done for 40 years, students will celebrate with a pancake breakfast with fresh maple syrup.
Comments