The Stories of Trees
Every tree can tell us a story, whether it is a personal memory, historical fact or a legend long forgotten.
The Glasgow Caledonian University's Sustainability Team together with the Every Tree Tells a Story project invites you to join us for a walk around the University to learn about the history, biodiversity and green spaces of Glasgow campus through the stories that trees can tell us. The walk will be followed by a discussion and an opportunity to record your own tree story!
The walk and talk session will take place on Thursday, 27 March 2025 from 12-1pm. You can sign up to the event here.
As this session will be mostly carried out outdoors, please remember to wear weather-appropriate clothing!
Sarah Dodd, from the Every Tree Tells A Story project: "This is a collective organic project, founded in Glasgow in 2021, and conceived as an innovative response to the need to more deeply explore the connections between place, nature, community, (inclusive) society, and ecojustice".
ETTAS supports postcard-centred storytelling in partnership with schools, communities, artists, activists, walkers, students and policy makers. We invite citizens of all ages to simply share their stories of trees with us on specially designed postcards, through an informal vox pop approach, in the city’s squares, pubs, parks and trails. We have also run more structured pop-up workshop events, collaborating with primary schools, libraries, cultural centres, universities and other civic institutions. Some stories are shared in words, some in drawings, and some in both forms. ETTAS generates sustainability value for participants through voicing and sharing their connections with nature. ETTAS’ citizen social science data also captures the role, value, and impact of trees in citizens’ lives, facilitating democratic and grounded evidence-based policy mapping for urban forestry. Recent work highlights the multifaceted significance of tree-sources for urban citizen wellbeing.
The collective is led by Strathclyde University and Glasgow City Council, and other friends involved in ETTAS include Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Caledonian University, University of Glasgow, and actor-activist Tam Dean Burn.
If you have any enquiries about this event, please contact sustainability@gcu.ac.uk. To learn more about ETTAS project, please visit their website or social media pages.
Read below some tree stories told by the University staff and students during one of our campus ETTAS events:
