Thursday Afternoon

In the afternoon, I had to climb a 120 foot weather tower! It had 16 sets of steps with 14 steps on each set. How many steps did I climb? I do not like heights, so I had to face my fears. I couldn't take a picture of the tower, because it was too tall. Here's a picture taken from the top. My backpack is the black dot on the ground:

Thursday morning

Let me tell you about today!
Today we walked way back in the woods where it had been logged about 2 years ago. We had to measure the diameter of all the "course woody debris" that intersected a certain line on the Y side of a hectare plot. We laid out a measuring tape for 80 meters (how long is that? As long as the school? How many feet is that?) "Course woody debris" is dead wood. So, we had to measure all the dead wood that intersected this measuring tape that stretched out for 80 meters. The woods were very thick and brambly, with lots of stickers and prickers. Ouch. It took a long time, but I had fun with my two team mates! I'm going to try to post a video, but if it doesn't work (I'm having trouble with this....), I'll show you when I get back..
The scientists need this information to measure the amount of carbon that is being returned to the soil when trees die.

acorns

Hey! Here's one of the best things that I learned all week!

Hello WBS!! I want to answer all your questions from Thursday!
Mrs. Born's class:
Katy and Myers- the water is very muddy because of all the decaying debris, and fortunately,
no one fell in!
Maddie - we walk about 5-7 miles a day, and it is pretty hilly!
Mrs. Williams' class:
Hallie - welcome! I look forward to meeting you!
Samantha, I am having a wonderful time, but it is hard work. I am learning a lot!
Tommy - GREAT QUESTION! The scientists us the leaf scraps to determine the amount of
carbon stored and released in the forest. This gives them valuable information on the effects
of climate change in this area.
Andrew - It is not hard to get the circumference of a tree, because we have the dendrometers,
and the DBH tapes. The are the special tools you need. But most importantly, we work
together as a team!
Mrs. Carter's class:
Harper - the biggest tree we measured took 3 people to reach around the tree. It was
big!
Alex- the smallest trees we measure are 5 cm in circumference. How big is that?
Maddee and Abby - I am here with 7 other teachers. They are from Florida, Texas,
Washington (state), Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New York.
Mrs. Eaton's class:
Van - Yes, we found all the buckets. I have lots of scrapes and scratches as battle scars.
Carly - They don't allow hunting again until Saturday, so I took my early morning
walk without fear!
Maegan - I have hugged about 50 trees, and George, it took about 3 hours.
Mrs. Capps' class:
Ava - We were sorting a bucket of leaves and stuff. The leaves went in one pile, the seeds,
nuts, and berries went in another pile, and the twigs went in a third pile. The mouse had his
own pile because he didn't match any of the other stuff!

Mapping Trees and Sorting Leaves

Hi boys and girls! That was so cool talking to the 5th graders today - you all asked such good questions.
Today was a great day in the woods. We walked really far, but it was beautiful. We worked in teams to tag, measure, and identify trees in a specific location. Then we had to plot their location based on the hectare graph I showed you Watch these videos to see how it is done!

In the afternoon, it was raining, so we went to the lab to sort the "leaf litter" that we collected yesterday. We sorted the leaves by species, and we sorted out the fruits, twigs, and "other." Our "other" pile was a dead mouse! The "leaf litter" will be dried in a BIG dryer, and the weighed. This will give important information to the scientists about how the forest is decomposing.

Hello WBS!! What a day! I walked in the woods from 7:00am to 5:00pm with only a short break for lunch. I'm tired! In the morning, we fought our way through brambles and bushes to find 10 red buckets. Check out the videos to see me in action!

To find the buckets, the scientist who led us, Dr. Nancy Khan, used a graph of the hectare plot like I showed you in my blog yesterday. We collected "leaf litter,"which is leaves, twigs, and other vegetation that had fallen in the buckets over the past few weeks. Scientists use the leaf litter to help measure the carbon produced by the forest. Why do they want to know this? How does this related to the greenhouse effect? How do trees put carbon into the ground? You can see how leaf litter contributes to the carbon cycle by going to the following website:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/carbon_cycle_version2.html

What is this process called?

In the afternoon, we measured the length and diameter of dead wood that had fallen on the ground in plots that measured 10 meters by 10 meters. (What is the area of these plots?) Again, this information is used to help scientists calculate the amount of carbon stored and released in the forest. Some of plots were fenced off so deer couldn't get in, and in some plots we had to pull out all the weeds. Pull weeds in the woods?!? That sounded really weird to me at first, but then the scientist, Dr. John Parker, told us that the weeds we were pulling were "invasive species." Can anyone tell me what an "invasive species" is? Can you name one? What's the big deal? Let me see your answers! By the way, I did see some really big deer; six females and one six-point buck. Very exciting! Talk to you this afternoon!

Day One!

Hey! Thanks so much for sending me all your comments - keep up the good work!

I want to congratulate Leena, Sara Scott, and Matthew - they answered correctly that circumference is the distance around a circle. Also, congratulations to Caroline D. and Rebecca - they knew that diameter is the distance across a circle. And, Mrs. Born's class figured out big a hectare is - Good Job!
As you can see in the picture, today I learned how to measure the circumference of a tree. The measuring tool we used converts the circumference measurement into the measure of the diameter of a tree, which is the data the scientist use to chart the growth of the tree, and to then figure out how the forest changes over time. All the teachers here had to take a test to see if we knew how to do this correctly. (I passed.)

The scientists use a lot of the math skills that all of you are learning! The graph you see is a graph of the hecatare plot, which is the area in which we tag, identify, and measure the trees. We use X and Y coordinates, just like you learn to do in Mrs. Born's class!

Tonight we had a class on climate change. I want you to learn along with me. Go to:

www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids

What is the greenhouse effect?

Let's see which class can get this correct!

Talk to you tomorrow!