Kate Bernard, and 48 other local elementary teachers, are bringing their students to the zoo today, to help them learn about trees.

More than 1,000 second- and third-grade students from the Lansing area will meet today at Potter Park Zoo, 1301 S. Pennsylvania Ave. in Lansing, to learn about their environment and to celebrate Arbor Day.

Arbor Day has been a national tree-planting tradition since 1872.

“I hope that they can understand how important it is to have trees, especially with all the building that goes on around the town these days,” said Bernard, a third-grade teacher at Capital Area Academy, 5525 S. Pennsylvania Ave. in Lansing. “It’s something that they deal with every day so it’s something educational that they understand.

“Their big thing is always ‘trees give us oxygen’ and ‘trees help us live.’ They understand how important trees are.”

And that’s what Arbor Day officials are hoping for.

Although Arbor Day festivities in Michigan come to a close with local children planting a six-inch white ash tree on the zoo grounds, Arbor Day officials hope people will recognize the significance of the tree-planting every day.

“Even if people miss the actual Arbor Day they can still plant trees and celebrate,” said Kerry Boris, state coordinator for Michigan Arbor Day Alliance. “No matter what time it is in the spring you can still leave a legacy by planting a tree.”

The National Arbor Day Foundation is the world’s largest tree-planting environmental organization. The foundation provides more than 8 million trees each year for planting throughout America.