Most high school students spend their spare time on sports, part-time jobs or social media.
Josh Kirsch spends his searching for trees.
The Grade 12 student’s passion for Alberta’s oldest and most remarkable trees has earned him one of Canada’s most prestigious student awards: a $100,000 scholarship.
Kirsch recently received the Schulich Leader Scholarship, awarded annually to just 100 students across Canada who demonstrate exceptional achievement and potential in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
His winning project started with a book.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a librarian handed Kirsch a book about unusual trees.
“Basically it talked about big trees, old trees, unique trees and this just kind of sparked my interest that there was more out there than just your regular forest, there’s a story behind it,” Kirsch told CTV News Edmonton.
That curiosity grew into a years-long mission to document Alberta’s natural history.
Kirsch created Ancient Roots Alberta, an online platform that tracks and records heritage trees across the province. The website currently includes 374 verified trees, each with information about its location, size and significance.
Building the platform took hundreds of hours. That work came on top of six years spent exploring Alberta, measuring trees and documenting their stories.
“It’s definitely a living record, something that I’m going to work on all throughout my life. I don’t ever see it ending or stopping,” Kirsch said. “It’s kind of a growing project that I’m always going to work on.”
Ancient Roots Alberta wasn’t his first tree-focused project.
In 2022, Kirsch and a teacher launched the Alberta Grade 1 Tree Project, a website that allows students and the public to track trees planted by Grade 1 classes across the province as part of their curriculum.
He hopes his latest project inspires others to pay closer attention to the trees around them and even help identify new additions for the database.
The dedication impressed more than just tree enthusiasts.
“It’s not very often you get a student that has the academic abilities, as well as the passion and the story behind all of that,” said guidance counsellor Jacqueline Rohac, who encouraged him to apply for the scholarship.
“It was really his passion for his project that stood out.”
For Rohac, watching students turn their interests into opportunities is one of the most rewarding parts of her job.
For Kirsch, that opportunity will help fund the next chapter of a life already rooted in forestry.
This fall, he plans to attend the University of Alberta, where he will study forest business management.
And if his track record is any indication, Alberta’s heritage trees can expect to have a lifelong champion keeping an eye on them.
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