If you were a nut, getting ready to fall from your parent tree, Wilkes University biologist Shealyn Marino asked some visiting high school students, would you want to stay where you fell, in the shadow of the older tree?

No, Logan Kadet from Wallenpaupack Area High School answered. “You wouldn’t get big and tall.”

That’s right, Marino said. “You wouldn’t have the sunlight you need. You wouldn’t have the water. You wouldn’t have the nutrients.”

It’s better for a nut to roll away, or perhaps to be carried away by an animal or human, Marino said, comparing the nut’s need for its own space to a teenager’s desire for independence.

Marino’s presentation on nuts, which she referred to as the “seeds” of various trees, was one of several sessions that 100 students from seven regional high schoo

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