Hello everyone! It is the start of FEBRUARY, so it’s time to reveal this months Theme of the Month –
Trees!
Now, trees are all over the place. They’re everywhere. You might think they’re not that special. That this is kind of a boring topic for a theme of the month. I hate to say it, but if you’re thinking that, YOU ARE WRONG.
Because trees are AMAZING! They are BEAUTIFUL! They are FUN TO CLIMB! But the most important reason trees are special to us (and it’s a totally selfish reason) is that trees help keep us well-stocked in oxygen. It’s complicated, but the basic idea is that the air that trees breathe out (oxygen) is the air that we breathe in. And the air that trees breathe in (carbon dioxide) is the air that we breathe out. I say this is complicated because trees don’t actually breathe. They do “photosynthesis”. The point is, we humans have air to breathe all thanks to trees.
You might have noticed in my diagram that trees also give off a little bit of carbon dioxide and water. They do that through “cellular respiration,” which we care less about because it doesn’t give us all that oxygen we want so badly. I’m not going to say it here (because of potty mouth) but it’s kind of like farting and peeing for trees.
So basically, trees are NECESSARY FOR US TO SURVIVE. If all of a sudden we ran out of trees, we wouldn’t have enough oxygen to breathe. It would be WAY WORSE than running out of ice cream.
Over the course of the month, we’ll be sharing interesting facts and stories and pictures and everything about trees. Send us an email if you have anything interesting to share, or post it here or on our Facebook page.
In the meantime, enjoy one of our very favorite songs around here, “Photosynthesis” by the very best They Might Be Giants (while you’re at it, go buy the CD/DVD set – the songs are great, the animation on the videos are great, it’s one of our favorite dance party videos, period).