SUNY Oswego’s Canal Forest Restoration Project team will host nature-related activities, such as arts and crafts, kayaking, a story walk, local vendors and student research posters the day after National Arbor Day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 26, at Rice Creek Field Station. 

Attendance is free and all are welcome. Visitors are encouraged to bring cash for shopping with local vendors and for optional donations. 

Organizers noted the festival recognizes that National Arbor Day is a day set aside to celebrate trees, and is traditionally marked by tree giveaways and tree planting events. 

An annual highlight of Rice Creek’s Arbor Day celebration, the festival also features invited talks highlighting different perspectives on trees and forests. These perspectives include science, conservation, sustainability, human health and art. These talks are offered as part of Earth Week and Arbor Day celebrations at SUNY Oswego, and feature a talk by Paul Harris about food forests and edible woody plants, a talk by Tom Horton of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry about mycorrhizal networks of forest trees, and a tree-inspired poetry reading by Laura Donnelly of SUNY Oswego. 

Those who cannot join the talks in person can join them by Zoom, with a link available at calendar.oswego.edu/event/arbor-day-2025. Recordings will be posted to the Canal Forest Restoration Project’s YouTube channel after the event. 

The activities for the Arbor Day Festival include: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Tree giveaways will take place all day, providing swamp white oaks, white oaks, burr oaks and white pines. The giveaway table will also feature donated prizes. Also ongoing throughout the festival, visitors can enjoy a brand new story walk on Rice Creek’s green trail: a partnership with Oswego Public Library. The story walk is self-guided, but families are invited at 10 a.m. for a grand opening guided walk with children’s librarian Cathryn McVearry. 

  • 10 to 11 a.m.: Arts and crafts are available for adults and children. Volunteers can help children, while in the same room, adults can enjoy their own crafting: making a nature-themed tote bag. 
  • 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.: The Office of Sustainability will serve fresh pancakes and real maple syrup they produced right on campus, with sap collected from the Fallbrook sugarbush. Attendees are encouraged to bring cash for a suggested donation to SHOP (Students Helping Oz Peers), the SUNY Oswego campus food pantry. 
  • 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Open kayak and canoe time allows guests to paddle around Rice Pond using Rice Creek’s kayaks and canoes (please do not bring outside watercraft). Please bring your own life jacket for young children. 
  • Noon to 2 p.m.: Vendors, student spotlights and research posters. A pop-up market under the pavilion will feature students selling crafts they have been mastering during their time at SUNY Oswego. Inside the building, additional SUNY Oswego students will present posters about their local environmental research. 
  • 2 to 2:30 p.m.: Invited talk with Paul Harris of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation, discussing food forests and edible woody plants. This talk will discuss the benefits of food forests and will provide a tour through food-producing trees and their benefits to humans and the ecosystem. 
  • 2:45 to 3:15 p.m.: Invited talk with Thomas Horton of SUNY ESF on fungi and trees, providing an introduction to Horton’s research on the mycorrhizal networks of forest trees. 
  • 3:30 to 4 p.m.: Invited talk by Laura Donnelly, chair of Oswego's English and Creative Writing, with a poetry reading. To wrap up the event, Donnelly will discuss the process of writing a poem and will then perform a poetry reading inspired by Rice Creek. 

SUNY Oswego’s Rice Creek Field Station is dedicated to being a living laboratory for the advancement of knowledge through ecological research, education and stewardship of the natural world. In 2019, Rice Creek partnered with the Canal Forest Restoration Project to grow and distribute native trees that were heavily logged to support New York’s canal industry, including white oak, swamp white oak and white pine, restoring these trees to the region. 

Additional details about the festival, the Canal Forest Restoration Project, and how to support the project can be found on Rice Creek Field Station’s website, www.oswego.edu/ricecreek. 

-- Submitted by Rice Creek Field Station