Roxhill Elementary School 4th graders and Explorer West Middle School students joined forces with Seattle Parks and Recreation Department May 8 to clear ivy choking native plants along the Seola Beach Drive Southwest greenbelt.

The greenbelt is parks department property. The department’s nature area crew is working with Cascade Land Conservancy in a program to clear 2,500 acres in 25 years in Seattle.

“We go into these areas and work with volunteers or on our own, replacing evasive plants with native plants citywide,” said Simon Hathaway, a member of the crew who helped supervise the students.

“All this urban forest has to be restored,” he said. “We need the help of kids, neighbors, corporations, one project at a time. A lot of ivy is creeping in and strangling the canopy of trees. This makes the trees too heavy and they can fall down in a storm. These madronas will brown out and die,” he added, pointing upward toward a few sorry-looking leaf-bare trees."