September 2026. This past summer, ACER had the pleasure of mentoring Canada Summer Jobs students once again—six in total, ranging in age from just entering university to just having graduated. Over the eight-week term, the students worked in two teams to measure and record data on the growth and health of more than 460 trees at 57 of ACER’s Planting for Change (P4C) schoolyard micro-forests across the GTHA, under the supervision of Alice Casselman, ACER Founder and President and Sonya Wieler, long-time Board Director. All site visits also included anecdotal reports, photos and panoramic videos—providing the most comprehensive site visit documentation EVER, that will be an invaluable time-saver for future field visit preparation!

Throughout the summer, the students showed tremendous adaptability and flexibility dealing with the weather and switching to remote (at home) work on those days that were just too hot, or smoky, or both! At home, their work was mainly entry and analysis of the data they had collected; but also included uploading all of their field visit documentation for ACER’s records; creating new tree sketch maps, as needed; plus other individually assigned tasks such as auditing the completeness of data entered over the last 3 years, helping to organize ACER field visit files, and creating reels for ACER’s social media.

In addition to upping their technical skills and reinforcing the importance of data accuracy and integrity, and critical thinking, the work also helped the students develop and improve skills in other areas: collaboration and teamwork, communication, time management and working independently while still meeting deadlines. They also developed a better understanding of the role of each of Canada’s 3 levels of government, and the importance of fulfilling their civic duties, through Alice’s famous Civics Assignment!

Over the last 2 and a half weeks of their term, the students worked together to draft a comprehensive report that summarizes their field visits, presents their analysis of the data collected, complete with visuals, and provides recommendations for future field monitoring activities. One of the visuals is included below—the results of their carbon (CO2) sequestration analysis. We expect to publish the final report in the coming weeks, so…stay tuned! Another significant achievement by the team was “ground-truthing” ACER’s new Tree Inventory Specialist Guidelines, guidelines that can be used for years to come.