Environmental leaders from college campuses throughout the country will meet at the University of Central Florida on Monday, Nov. 14, to discuss strategies for caring for trees.

Attendees of the Tree Campus Canopy Summit will learn how to maintain trees and create networks through hands-on learning sessions on college campuses. College campus grounds managers, landscape architects, facilities directors, students and other leaders will hear from experts in the field about topics such as maintenance, preservation, insect problems and community collaboration.

The one-day conference will include a tour of UCF’s grounds as well as a showcase of UCF student projects that focus on topics such as urban heat islands, canopy changes and the effects of urban forestry.

“This summit is a great opportunity for UCF to showcase its land management and urban forests practices to professionals throughout the country while also providing UCF staff with valuable training,” said Alaina Bernard, assistant director for UCF Landscape & Natural Resources.

The Tree Campus Canopy Summit is part of the Partners in Community Forestry National Conference to be held next week in Lake Buena Vista. The conference is hosted by the Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit conservation and education organization dedicated to planting trees.

In March the Arbor Day Foundation awarded UCF a Tree Campus USA recognition for promoting healthy management of campus forests and for engaging the community in projects to help preserve the environment.

To learn more about UCF’s “green” initiatives, visit http://green.ucf.edu. For more on the Arbor Day Foundation, go to http://www.arborday.org.