Project VOICE 2025 celebrated student and teacher semester long project to answer the question “What does it look like to live in a healthy and vibrant community?” Students did walking tours of their schools and neighborhoods and identified challenges and opportunities to improve their community. Projects included traffic calming, native tree plantings, community gardens and more. Keynote speaker, Monique Gray Smith, encouraged the audience to look for the places that bring us joy and happiness and make changes to support us.

Community partnerships bring students, teachers and Vancouver’s Urban Forestry experts together. Adding trees at school bring countless benefits including shade to playgrounds, diverse plantings for hands-on learning, in-classroom instruction tied to school curricula and community stewardship through group plantings. Adding trees at schools reduces heat island effects of pavement and bare ground, improves air quality, reduces noise impacts and add nearby nature. Research shows that view of trees from classroom windows, as well as daily access, reduces stress, improves test scores and promotes well-being.

Plantings in 2025 include:

• VPS VITA Elementary School

• VPS Fruit Valley Elementary School

• Minnehaha Elementary School

Plantings in 2026 include:

• VPS Fort Vancouver HS

• VPS Flex Academy HS

• VPS Lincoln Elementary

• VPS Fruit Valley Elementary

Community plantings and partnerships are adding trees throughout the Climate Justice communities such as Hazel Dell and Minnehaha neighborhoods. Clark County Public Works and Clark Conservation District planted hundreds of trees in the winter-spring of 2024-2025, including parks and open spaces. Planting locations included:

- Bosco Farms Neighborhood Park
- Roads End Neighborhood Park
- Douglas Carter Fisher Neighborhood Park

Learn more about the County’s planting efforts at the Clark Conservation District Urban Tree Canopy webpage and Clark County Public Work’s Clean Volunteer web pages.

Video of recent plantings and how you can get involved is HERE.

Several LCNN Partners have been coordinating professional development clock hours across the school year to help teachers learn how to teach a variety of science and STEM curricula outside. These workshops connect partnership agencies and educators through hands-on learning, curricula activities, discussion groups and building the educator community. Learn more about the 20267-2027 school year workshops at Take Learning Outside web page HERE.