Planting a tree with your kids is a great weekend activity. Although you can certainly start from a seed or kernel, the results are usually better, and the feedback more immediate, if you get a sapling from nursery. Your child can be part of the process of choosing the type of tree to plant. You can also begin the discussion about the importance of trees in photosynthesis, using carbon dioxide and producing oxygen—the opposite of what animals and people do. Trees can create wonderful memories as well. I remember planting a peach tree as a kid using a peach pit buried about a foot in the ground, and completely forgot about it until the tree came up months later. In a few years we had a bumper crop, and those peaches were always extra special, knowing that they had come from a tree that I had planted.