Sippican School fifth grade students traded pens and notebooks for shovels and trowels Friday afternoon to plant Atlantic white cedar trees.

More than 80 students, teachers and parent volunteers helped prepare a stand of ten trees, located behind the school.

Planting the trees capped two days of lessons on the trees' impact on the local ecosystem that also featured a sixth grade field trip to Copicut Woods in Fall River on Oct. 9.

Copicut Woods is a 516-acre forested property owned and managed by the Trustees of Reservations, a nonprofit dedicated to conserving land in Massachusetts.

Yelena Sheynin, head steward of the Sippican Lands Trust, said the trustees and the land trust collaborated on the hands-on lesson at Copicut Woods and Sippican School.

“In addition to learning about the trees, this was a chance to teach the kids about local and regional land trusts and how they work together to conserve land,” Sheynin said.

The trustees donated the trees, which were grown on two acres of land dedicated to cultivating Atlantic white cedars at Copicut Woods.

Before the planting, the trustees Education Outreach Coordinator Linton Harrington answered questions students had on the trees inside the school's multipurpose room.

Other lessons focused on how the trees were once plentiful throughout southeastern Massachusetts but now face a diminished habitat.

The trees were also important to early settlers who used the lumber for small boats, shingles and gunpowder during the Revolutionary War.

Sheynin noted that Marion resident Sherman Briggs donated his time and equipment to move the trees from Copicut Woods and dug the holes where the trees were planted.

On Friday, students filled in dirt around the holes and staked the trees to prevent them from falling over. In the coming months, the trees will be watered regularly and monitored by students.