60 free Arbor Day trivia questions with answers. Arbor Day trivia for classrooms, garden clubs, scout troops and anyone planting a tree on the last Friday in April. The questions start with the story every kid learns: J. Sterling Morton, the treeless Nebraska prairie, and the estimated one million trees planted on April 10, 1872. From there they cover why states celebrate on different dates (Hawaii in November, Florida in January, Alaska in May), Richard Nixon’s 1972 proclamation, the Arbor Day Foundation and its Tree City USA program, Arbor Lodge, and Birdsey Northrop carrying the idea to Japan. Because Arbor Day is really about trees, the quiz also visits the world’s tree-planting days (China’s March 12, India’s Van Mahotsav, Israel’s Tu BiShvat, Australia’s National Tree Day), Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement, Johnny Appleseed, Joyce Kilmer’s poem and The Lorax, plus record trees like Methuselah, Hyperion, General Sherman and Pando, tree rings, acorns, state trees and the basics of photosynthesis. Easy questions suit an 8-year-old; the hard ones will test a forester. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia, state statutes, the Congressional Research Service fact sheet or the Arbor Day Foundation, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which US state was the first American Arbor Day held in 1872?
Nebraska
Newspaper editor J. Sterling Morton proposed it to the state board of agriculture, and the treeless prairie state took to it fast.
Q 02Roughly how many trees were planted on the first Arbor Day, April 10, 1872?
One million
Counties and individuals were offered prizes for the most trees properly planted, which helped drive the huge total.
Q 03What is the customary way to observe Arbor Day?
Plant a tree
Unlike most holidays that look back at an event, Arbor Day is built around doing something for the future.
Q 04On which day is National Arbor Day observed in the United States?
Last Friday in April
Many states pick their own dates to match local planting seasons, from midwinter in the Deep South to late spring in the far north.
Q 05Which US president proclaimed National Arbor Day in 1972, on the holiday's 100th anniversary?
Richard Nixon
Congress requested the designation by joint resolution; Arbor Day has never been a federal holiday.
Q 06What was J. Sterling Morton's job after he moved west to the plains in 1854?
Newspaper editor
He edited the Nebraska City News and later served as US Secretary of Agriculture under Grover Cleveland.
Q 07Which US president appointed J. Sterling Morton as Secretary of Agriculture?
Grover Cleveland
Morton served from 1893 to 1897 and backed Cleveland in setting up national forest reservations.
Q 08When it made Arbor Day a legal state holiday in 1885, which date did the holiday's home state choose?
April 22, Morton's birthday
April 22 is now better known as Earth Day, which was launched in 1970, nearly a century later.
Q 09Which governor issued the first official Arbor Day proclamation in 1874?
Robert Furnas
Furnas was himself a horticulturist and orchard grower, a natural ally for Morton's tree campaign.
Q 10What company did the Arbor Day founder's son Joy go on to found?
Morton Salt
Joy Morton also founded the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, in 1922, keeping the family tree obsession alive.
Q 11What is the Morton family estate, now a state historical park where the holiday began, called?
Arbor Lodge
The 52-room mansion grew from a four-room frame house and is surrounded by 270 varieties of plants and shrubs.
Q 12In what year was the Arbor Day Foundation founded?
1972
It launched on the centennial of the first Arbor Day and now has more than a million members.
Q 13What is the name of the Arbor Day Foundation program that recognizes communities for good urban forestry?
Tree City USA
To qualify, a town needs a tree board, a tree ordinance, a minimum per-capita forestry budget, and an Arbor Day celebration.
Q 21By what year did all 50 US states officially celebrate Arbor Day?
1978
After Nebraska, the holiday spread first to Kansas, Tennessee, Minnesota and Ohio.
Q 22China's Arbor Day, March 12, commemorates the death of which leader who championed reforestation?
Sun Yat-sen
A 1979 resolution asked every able-bodied citizen aged 11 to 60 to plant three to five trees a year.
Q 23How many trees per year does China's 1979 tree-planting resolution ask each able-bodied citizen to plant?
Three to five
Citizens can do equivalent work in seedling nurseries or tree care instead, and many couples marry the day before and plant a tree together.
Q 14How much per resident must a community spend on urban forestry for Arbor Day Foundation recognition?
At least $2
More than 3,900 communities have qualified, and nearly half of Americans live in one.
Q 15Which two YouTubers launched the #TeamTrees fundraiser with the Arbor Day Foundation in 2019?
MrBeast and Mark Rober
They raised $20 million to plant 20 million trees in just 56 days, the largest YouTube fundraiser ever at the time.
Q 16Which Connecticut educator chaired the 1883 national Arbor Day campaign and later took the idea to Japan?
Birdsey Northrop
He delivered his Arbor Day and Village Improvement message in Japan in 1895 and also promoted it in Australia, Canada and Europe.
Q 17Which president issued an "Arbor Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States" in 1907?
Theodore Roosevelt
Pennsylvania conservationist Israel McCreight had pushed for it, arguing that conservation talks aimed at lumbermen missed the young.
Q 18In which month does Hawaii officially observe Arbor Day?
November
The first Friday in November marks the start of the islands' rainy season, the best time to get a young tree established.
Q 19Florida law sets its state Arbor Day on the third Friday of which month?
January
Cool-season planting gives roots time to settle before Florida's brutal summer; Louisiana uses the same date.
Q 20Which state observes Arbor Day on the third Monday in May, one of the latest dates in the country?
Alaska
Maine also waits until May, using its third full week; both states have to wait for the ground to thaw.
Q 24Tu BiShvat, celebrated in Israel by planting saplings, is known as the new year for what?
Trees
It falls on the 15th of Shevat, usually January or February, and was originally used to calculate the age of fruit trees for tithing.
Q 25India's week-long tree-planting festival, held in the first week of July, is called what?
Van Mahotsav
The name means roughly "great forest festival"; K. M. Munshi made it a national event in 1950.
Q 26Where did Australia hold its first Arbor Day event in 1889?
Adelaide
Today Planet Ark's National Tree Day falls on the last Sunday in July, with a schools version the Friday before.
Q 27Which Spanish village claims the first modern Arbor Day, organized by its priest in 1805?
Villanueva de la Sierra
The three-day festival started on Carnival Tuesday with a poplar, and the village still celebrates on that day.
Q 28In South Korea, Arbor Day on April 5 was a public holiday until which year?
2005
Sikmogil lost its day-off status but tree-planting activities carried on regardless.
Q 29Which Kenyan founded the tree-planting Green Belt Movement and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize?
Wangari Maathai
She was the first African woman to win the prize, and the movement she started in 1977 has planted more than 51 million trees.
Q 30How many trees were planted at the Green Belt Movement's very first event, on World Environment Day 1977?
Seven
Each honored a historical community leader; women were then paid a small stipend for every seedling they raised and planted.