NAMPA, Idaho — Idaho's hot summers are getting an eco-friendly intervention at the College of Western Idaho, where students and community members are planting trees ahead of Arbor Day to combat urban heat islands and create new educational spaces.
RELATED | College of Western Idaho's Nampa campus expanding for the first time since opening in 2007
The initiative aims to transform a 2-acre plot into a dedicated green space that will serve as an outdoor classroom within the college's 40-acre agriculture sciences complex.
"We really wanted that to be the main classroom because of the berm it's in and because of the way that the trees can kind of curve that and give you like a real private classroom experience while you're outside," said Angel Decker, a horticulture student involved in the project.
Urban heat islands form when natural landscapes are replaced with heat-absorbing surfaces like asphalt and concrete. These areas can become significantly warmer than surrounding regions with more vegetation.
"So you put in asphalt, you put in buildings around it, and there isn't any soft green space around it. So when it heats up during the day, that space also heats up. If you create a heat map, it glows bright red," explained Lance Davisson, Executive Director of the Treasure Valley Canopy Network.
Davisson's organization began mapping evening heat islands in 2019, starting in Boise. The resulting heat maps revealed hotspots throughout the valley that "lit up like stoplights," with parking lots identified as primary culprits for urban heat retention. Empty dirt lots and artificial turf fields also ranked high on the list of heat-trapping surfaces.
In August, the Canopy Network hopes to remeasure impacts in Boise and Meridian while expanding its heat mapping to include Nampa and Caldwell.
The College of Western Idaho's new green space was made possible through a federal grant obtained by the City of Nampa, with volunteer support from students at Birch Elementary and Rocky Mountain High School.
"So we wanted to kind of gift that to the new future of CWI," Decker said. "Now we can't give you a botanical garden, but we can certainly give you an arboretum that's got more than just trees. It has got everything in it."
RELATED | Kohlerlawn Cemetery granted $500,000 to replace infested trees
The same federal grant used to purchase the 40 trees by the city was used to fund the purchase and replacement of the trees at Kohlerlawn Cemetery that I previously reported on.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been, in part, converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
