Fun in the Field

Today was our first official day out in the field. In the morning we were split up into 3 teams.
1. vegetation team (study plants and trees)
2. quadrant team (study everything from plants to trees - this one seemed really hard)
3. soil team (study soil -this one was a very dirty job)
I chose to be on the vegetation team. Our job was to survey a 50 meter strip of land along a tape measure and look for what kinds of plants, shrubs, and trees take up a majority of it. We did this in the 3 different regions set up by the scientists. We surveyed in the forest, tundra/forest, and tundra areas. All areas were very different. This helps scientists know more about the kinds of vegetation that is present and the growing conditions necessary for them to grow. If the vegetation growth rate changes or types of plants change, then that means that the weather is changing and that can mean trouble. While were were out looking at the land my teammates and I discovered beautiful red and blue berries. We asked a scientist named Carly if we could eat them. She said we could because they were not the poisonous kind! They were so yummy and a nice snack to munch on while doing data collection. The weather was beautiful during the morning. It was about 45'F, the sun was shining, but it was a bit windy. I tried doing a video, but you cant hear me over the wind. I'll try to do another one tomorrow so you can see a bit of what I'm doing as well as the landscape I'm surrounded by. We go in for lunch everyday at 12:00. Mrs. Audrey cooks the best food and spoils us rotten with her scrumdiliumptious meals. After lunch we went back out the field to continue our studies. This time it was raining really hard and I got to try out my new rain gear. It was fun, but by the end of of it we were all soaked! My group finished our vegetation survey so we started on a new survey, which was tree coring. We got to drill a small hole into the tree to take a sample (about the size of a straw) so we could see how old it is. I drilled a tree today that was over 150 years old. We take a lot of info. about trees in a 30 x 30 meter section. We need to study 50 trees in that square section. We study the vegetation growth on the ground and a little above to see what is growing at the moment. We will also be coring another 50 trees outside the square section as well. Then we will go hunting for seedlings and saplings. All of this info. will be used by the scientists to compare prior research data to see if the plant species has changed and has growth slowed down in this region due to climate change.
Questions: How many feet are in one meter?
If I am measuring a 30x30 square section how many meters total is that? Can you convert that to feet?
How can you tell how old a tree is?
What temperature does the outside air have to be in order for it to snow?