Last field trip

Me making a phone call to my classroom. The satellite phone didn't work:( This is Adam and I boring a tree.This is the core we got. Ohhh look at those gorgeous rings! I'm officially a tree nerd now- ha ha

Today was our last day in the field. We cored another 50 trees today and started doing the vegetation survey as well as soil sampling. Scientist Steve was able to give us to information about all the data we've collected so far these past 9 days. We have cored over 600+ trees. We collected over 400+ seedlings and saplings. We have counted 1,400+ whorls. We have worked with 3 species of trees (black spruce, white spruce and larch). The ages have not been determined yet. He said he found one over 150+ years. Some of the trees that are small in size can actually be quite old. We looked at data that Mr. Steve has compiled over the past few years and it definitely shows a warming trend in this part of the earth. One effect of this is that the tree line has moved itself further back then it has been in the past. This means less room to grow in = less trees.
Questions:
What are some of the effects on Earth if there are less trees?
What are whorls on a tree?
What are your thoughts about the amounts of seedlings and saplings we have removed from the forest?

Inuksuk (i nuk suk)

I am infatuated with this Inuit structure called an “inuksuk”. They are all over the town and we found a really cool one close to the bay. The Inuit make inukshuit (plural for inuksuk) in different forms and for different purposes. Sometimes they were used to show directions to travelers, to warn of people of danger, to mark a place of respect, or to help hunt caribou. The Inuksuk is so common across the Arctic that they have become a common sight all across Canada, especially in the north. It is a pile of stones arranged in the shape of a human being. The Inuit used the Inuksuk to mark trails, indicate stashes of food, the location of of nearby settlements and of good places to hunt or fish. At one time the Inuit built inukshuit in long lines on each side of the Caribou trail to help hunt them.
Questions:
What are Inuit?
How did an inuksuk help the Inuit with hunting of caribou?
What does an inuksuk represent to the Inuit?

Oh what a day!!!

We finally had a day off today. We went on a road tour in an old school bus with our very knowledgeable guide “Sheldon”. We had high hopes of seeing a polar bear of course, as well as other animal life. We saw huge mounds of land pushed up from the earth about 2-4 feet due to frozen permafrost underneath them. While driving on trails in the tundra, we stopped to take a picture of snow geese, tundra swan and red foxes. Sheldon had seen a polar bear the day before along the Hudson Bay in an area new his house. So we went there and sure enough, there was the 1,000lb bear walking along the bay. From what I could see….he was a massive mound of muscle with creamy fur. I couldn’t believe I was finally looking at a real live polar bear! We decided to move on in our drive and then the big moment occurred…Mr. Doug spotted the ever elusive white mass in the forest. High up on the rocky cliff, along the tree line of the boreal forest, there roamed a polar bear! I couldn’t believe my eyes. For a week now we have been going out on to the land hoping, praying, to see one. It was an “awe” inspiring moment. We sat and watched him for a while. We could tell he was really involved in something, perhaps eathing a dead beluga or seal carcass from the bay and dragged it up the cliff. On our way to lunch it started to snow flurries in the air. It only lasted about 15 minutes or so, but it was so beautiful. I couldn’t believe it snowed while we were up here. We stopped and ate lunch at Gypsey’s deli for lunch….ymm ymmm! Then we took off for some more sight seeing on foot, shopping, the Eskimo museum, and finally dinner at Tundra. We made one more stop at the Hudson Bay for Verdi and his pals; Curious George and Dr. Foo Foo to go swimming. We put them all into a plastic bag (their swimming suit) and sent them on their way. It was a perfect day in Churchill.
Question:
How cold is the Hudson Bay at this time of year?
How does the Hudson Bay effect the weather in Churchill?
Do Polar Bears hibernate?
When are polar bear cubs born?

Wildlife does live here!

We are still at Rocket Lake surveying the land for seedlings and saplings. We are about finished and will be moving to another site on Sunday. We had collected so many seedlings and saplings that the van was full so about 5 of us had to walk back to the center, which was only about a 10 minute walk. Along the way Mr. Doug spotted an Arctic Hare. This is one of the first bigger animals we've seen. I have put up some pictures of him as well as a video. Arctic Hares are much bigger then I thought they'd be. Absolutely beautiful with their pure white fur and black markings along their ears and eyes. I wonder if their is a reason for those??? Tomorrow we are finally get a day off. We going on a land tour in the morning. Hopefully there will be some polar bears out and about. I would love to see Caribou as well. We will eat lunch in town and the head off to the Eskimo museum. We'll do some gift shopping and then head to dinner. After that we'll be exhausted and ready to go to bed. Looking forward to having a day off. I can't believe how much work is involved in this scientific study we are helping out on.

Questions:
How far away is Churchill, Manitoba from Tempe,Arizona?
What did you think about the conference call on Friday?
Why do trees have rings? (I stole this one from Tom- but I found the answer)
What kinds of things can scientists tell from tree rings?

Beautiful Surroundings

We went to a new site today called Black Forest. It was very different then Rocket Lake. This site has much more trees packed tightly together as well as a very different ground cover. There is a ground cover here known as Lichen (Lie kin). It is white and when there is an abundance of it, it looks as if there is snow on the ground. Here is some of the beautiful landscape and vegetation photos I've gathered on my daily outings in the field. I am surrounded by this beauty everyday.

Fun findings

Day 3 of field work. We continued working in Rocket Lake. As a group we needed to core another 50 trees. By about 4:00p.m. we were done and started surveying the land for seedlings and saplings. For this study, seedlings are plants under 15 cm and saplings are 15-199 cm. This is very tedious work and is going to probably take us all of tomorrow to complete it. It was extremely windy today. It sprinkled a bit on us, but not anything like the day before. We have water proof paper to write on with pencil in the rain. Its really cool paper. Almost feels a bit waxy, but you run it through the computer printer just like any other paper. I’m learning a lot and having a ton of fun with the teachers and scientists. I was secretly hoping that it was going to be a lot colder than it is, but after the windy day today….I’m good. I will hopefully be able to talk to classes today. Fingers crossed! I've included some pics of animal bones and remains that are just lying around here at the research center. The first 3 are the top half of the skull of a Beluga whale: top, side, and bottom view. There is a picture of its lower jaw as well as a whale vertebrate. The next one is of a Caribou skull and antlers. There is a picture of a moose antler, a skull and spine of a vole, and a wing of a snow goose. I put a playing card in the pic so you can compare the size of the object to something.
Questions:
What is a vole?
Why are a lot of Arctic animals white?
What role do trees play in our environment?

Tree Boring and Coring

It was day 2 out in the field. Another beautiful sunny day. The rain stayed away and allowed us to work all day. We went back to Rocket Lake and continued where we left off. We needed to bore and core 50 trees within the forest. The trees in the forest are all White Spruce or Black Spruce trees. They look just like your typical Christmas tree. I couldn't believe we completed 50 trees by the end of the day. The difference between boring and coring is that "boring" means to drill into a tree. "Coring" is when the core is taken from the tree trunk. Don't worry, the core is only the size of a straw. In fact that is what we keep them in so they don't break. I was concerned that because we drill all the way through the tree that insects might get it and ruin or kill the tree. However I was told that the trees will release a sap into the hole to plug it up. It kind of uses it as a bandaid. Today I spent countless minutes trying to get crumbling tree cores into their straws. Some of the trees were ruthless when it came to boring them and the tree corer tool would often get stuck or the spoon couldn’t grasp hold of the core. The dead trees were often the worse to core, being the most difficult of all. I ended the day with sore knees, bloody knuckles, and you can’t forget my cracked fingernail. Needless to say boring isn’t as easy as it looks and there will be a lot of gluing together all the broken cores. Today in the field we had a very special visit from “Lab Man” He is the super hero of the forest that helps get research done in the field at lightning fast speed. I think Verdi was scared at first because he tried to attack "Lab Man". He quickly made friends with him and realized he was just there to help. Tomorrow we will be moving into the tundra/forest area and bore another 50 trees. We are expecting good weather and another visit from “Lab Man”.
Questions: What is the average age of a white spruce or black spruce tree? What is the oldest living tree, how old is it, and where was it found? What is the "tundra"?

Meet my AZ buddy

So I mentioned to some of you to read my blog so you could see my special travel mate I brought along with me. I didn't want to travel alone and I didn't want to be the only person from AZ. Some of you know him and some of you don't. Please help me welcome the devilishly handsome and terribly shy.....VERDI!!!!! Let me tell you....he is one big drama king. He was scared out of his skin to travel on the plane. I had to hold him in my lap the whole way...it was quite embarrassing. He made it through, but was not very happy with me. I introduced him to all my teammates and some of them had animals they brought along as well. This made Verdi very happy. He now hangs out with Curious George and Foo Foo the polar bear. I'll have to show you pics of them later. He has come along on all our field studies so far. At first he was too scared to venture out of the backpack, but as soon as he spotted a big tall tree....he was good to go! I've included some shots of Verdi in action. He is a big copy cat...always doing what I am. Very annoying!!! He is getting a little full of himself these past few days and even asked if he could have his own blog!!! Aye Aye Aye. Enjoy the shots of him and if you have any questions, he'd said that would be ssssuper cool if you emailed him.

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?

Polar Bear Madness

Ok- so I have yet to see a real polar bear, but I'll keep my eyes open and my running shoes on. However, there is a polar bear skin rug here at the research center that I am infatuted with. It is so beautiful and way bigger then I thought. There is a whole story about this 8 year old bear that I'll share with you later. Another teacher and I were playing around with it today and acting like clowns. Here are some pictures showing you just how big the front paw is. There is another one of Mr. Chandler pretending to be attacked.
Questions for students:
How big is a polar bear?
How long can they live for?
Can a human out run a polar bear?
Why are they able to survive in arctic temperatures?

Back to School

September 22, 2008

This morning I was in class from 7:45-9:30 a.m. We learned all about the research we will helping with in the field. We will be coring trees to test their age and stress levels by looking at the rings. We learned how to use a clinometer to measure the height of a tree. We’ll also be taking soil samples to test the contents and of it and drilling into the permafrost to see the depth, and temperature. All of this is to help test to see how the climate change up here is affecting the environment. There is a lot of details to be recorded and notes to be taken. We got to take a short trip into town today. Only 1,000 people live here so you can imagine how small it is here. We went to the grocery store to get some supplies. Since Churchill is a remote location in Canada everything has to be shipped in. I noticed that all the prices are about 3x the amount of the cost in AZ. A box of raisan bran was $12.00. A container of OJ was $9.00. Unreal, but it makes sense. On our way back to “The Boneyard” (as the scientists refer to the research station), we saw a crash site of an old plane that went down right by the Hudson Bay. We drove past a group of sled dogs. They were all just chained up in an open field. It was explained to us that they are not seen as pets. In fact they are pretty wild dogs. Someone feeds them and that’s about it. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. However, they are working dogs and people up here have a different view of how to handle them. It’s a different way of life. One I’m not sure I could handle. Its going to be another long night. We have school at 730-900pm and then more computer stuff after that. Its supposed to rain tomorrow and we have a big day in the field tomorrow. I guess I get to try out my rain gear I bought. It should be an exciting day!
So here is something for you to look up.
1.Global warming - what is it and how is it affecting the planet?
2.Permafrost - what is it and what will happen if it thaws out?
3. Time zone- what time zone is Churchill, Manitoba in. What is the time difference to AZ?

On the road to Churchill

September 21, 2008
I’m sitting in the Denver, CO airport awaiting my 2nd flight to Winnipeg, Canada. I’ve got about 2 hours to wait. I got up at 3am to get to the airport by 4:00. I decided that I wasn’t going to go to bed at all Saturday since I had to wake up so early. I fell asleep in the Phoenix, AZ airport waiting for my plane. Woke up to realize that the plane was already boarding and I was one of the last to get on it. Never done that before. I slept the whole flight from Phx. to Denver. Landing was what woke me. I am so tired that it’s hard to keep my eyes open. The flight is 2+ hours to Winnipeg, then I get on my 3rd and final flight to Churchill. A lot of the teachers are on the same flight so we’ll meet up there. Can’t wait to meet everybody and see the dynamics of the group. I still can’t believe I was one of the lucky few that got picked to go on this expedition. It will be an experience of a lifetime and who knows if an opportunity like this will ever come my way again. The flight to Churchill was uneventful. Met a bunch of my new teammates on the flight and it feels good to be on the ground again. 3 planes and 9 1/2 hours later I’m finally here. Ecstatic to be going to the bird, polar bear, beluga whale watching capitol of the world. I am so excited to learn about our research we are contributing to. Tonight before bed, we saw the Northern lights. Something I've only read about. What a marvelous sight!
Tasks for students:
Look up the Northern lights to find out more info. or go to http://www.lazybearlodge.com/northern_lights.php