PLANT RESOURCES

There are lots of ways to learn to dig plants. Find out about Alley Pond's courses for kids on plants, trees and their ecosystems, for example:www.alleypond.com

Or simply click over to www.arborday.org, a terrific resource on trees, covering their growth, identification, human reliance, and more.

The Council on the Environment has a wealth of online information about plant-astic local groups and programs, including the Grow Truck and the Citizen Street Tree Pruners Course. The site also offers free factsheets on plants, trees and composting:www.cenyc.org

The Garden Mapping Project is a Web site that allows you (or your parents) to track down open City spaces: http://www.oasisnyc.net/gardens/cenycmapsearch.asp

The site at www.ecokids.ca covers a broad range of city nature topics and has a great section on trees with fun facts, printable pages, and lots more.

If you want to begin learning about the science of plants, this botany site makes it easy: www.nbii.gov/disciplines/botany/science.html

New Yorkers for Parks' Web site includes information about what neighborhoods are doing to protect and promote their parks: www.ny4p.org

The New York Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Bontanic Garden both have many resources on their sites to help kids learn about plants as well as a range of activities for children at the gardens themselves. The BBG sponsors The Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment High School among other programs: www.bbg.org. The NYBG sponsors Greenschool, the Steere Herbarium and others: www.nybg.org

The Bronx Green-Up, sponsored by NYBG, offers information on composting, local community gardening, garden sites and additional educational resources: www.nybg.org/bgu

The NYC Parks Department's Web site has online games, educational resources, great facts, lists of local events, info about tree plantings, info on tons of public programs for kids, a greenstreets map and a map of community gardens (phew! - that's a lot of info): www.nycgovparks.org

This site is a springboard to sites focusing on trees in urban areas, and makes the subject approachable:http://www.eagleeyeinstitute.org/treesaremyfriends/

TreesNY offers information about the urgent need for trees in NYC, as well as schedules for tree plantings and youth activities/courses: www.treesny.com

After you've learned as much as you can about plants, you'll be ready to design your own tree at this cool site: www.units.muohio.edu/dragonfly/itd/game.html