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FD class of 2030 plants for the future

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Surrounded by students from Duncombe and Feelhaver Elementary Schools, Duncombe student Paxton Chance, 6, helps Fort Dodge Community School District superintendent Doug Van Zyl read the inscription on this year’s Kindergarten Tree at the Fort Dodge Middle School Thursday morning. Students from Butler and Cooper Elementary Schools visited the tree in the afternoon.

As a large group of kindergarten students from Feelhaver and Duncombe elementary schools gathered in a circle around a tree set in a freshly dug hole at the Fort Dodge Middle School Thursday morning, Fort Dodge Community School District Superintendent Doug Van Zyl asked them all a simple question.

“Why are we here?”

“Because we’re going to plant a tree,” one of the students said.

Of course, the tree being planted, with the students’ help, isn’t just any tree.

Paxton Chance, 6, a Duncombe student, helped Van Zyl read the sign posted in front of it.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Framed by the handle of the small kindergarden sized shovel used to help plant it, a group of students pose for a picture with this year’s Kindergarten Tree at the Fort Dodge Middle School Thursday morning.

“Kindergarten Class of 2017-18.”

Van Zyl used the opportunity to offer the students a positive message.

“This is your tree,” he said. “There’s several parts of a tree. What are some of them?”

The children had a variety of answers, including sticks, branches, bark, stems and leaves.

“This tree is going to grow just like you,” Van Zyl said. “Once we put it underground, there’s a part we don’t see. The roots are going to help it grow. You’re going to also grow. This will be growing. You can come back and see how much bigger it is.”

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Feelhaver Elementary School kindergardener Korbin Jones, 6, throws an appropriately sized shovel full of dirt atop the roots of this year’s Kindergarten Class tree at the Fort Dodge Middle School Thursday morning. His classmate, Hadley McKinney, 6, has her’s ready to go at left.

Of course, the children will be too.

“If the tree could talk,” he said, “it would say oh my gosh you’re getting bigger too.”

A tree requires nutrients from the soil, light and water to grow, just as the student’s need things to help them grow.

“There’s something up here,” Van Zyl said pointing at his head. “Your brain is in some ways like the roots. You learn to read and write, you do math. We’re here to help feed it with great things. They will make you bigger and stronger.”

Susan Winter, a teacher at Feelhaver Elementary School, liked the message.

“You can come back years later and see how the tree has grown,” she said.

Groups of kindergarten students from Cooper and Butler elementary schools visited the middle school later in the day and helped finish planting the tree.

The students who helped on Thursday will be the graduating class of 2030.

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