Thursday September 25, 2008
Here are three pictures of plants from the Arctic forest. The first is of wild cranberries which we tasted. They were on the way to having a bitter sweetness. Next is a white spruce covered in lichen. It is really quite beautiful though most of the tree is dead underneath (or what we called reduced). The other is blueberry. The colors are extraordinary here. It is really autumn and yet trees don't have leaves turning the way we do at home, but brilliant ground coverings of almost every shade. Though it was colder today, it was very windy. At times, I felt as if I would be blown away. We finished coring our group of trees in the forest and headed out to the forest tundra where we did the same tasks. There were fewer trees there, and more wind to do damage to the trees. The ground is uneven and squishy and there are fewer trees. In the afternoon, we completed these tasks and began to do a search on the ground for seedlings and saplings. in groups of two, we laid out a meter stick and on our knees searched in front of it. You have to look very carefully, because there is a lot of different ground coverings. If we found either, we did our list of measurements. For a sapling, we then pulled it out of the ground for further analysis in the lab. This is called "destructive sampling". We didn't get very far, and the task was time consuming. We will continue in the AM on Friday.
Here is the lake that is next to the tundra where we were working today. The weather kept changing dramatically. We kept expecting rain but ultimately the sun won out. One of the trees we were working on was on a ledge over a huge stand of water. It was difficult to core or even find if the main trunk was a single standing trunk or more because of the tangle of roots, dead branches and underbrush. I must say that the members if my group were tenacious and persisted in their effort until the task was completed.
It was so exciting to hear from all of you today during our Skype call. I am trying to answer all your questions.
You can look at the comments or student questions to find some of your answers.
posted by Ms. Pat Gill @ 11:49 PM
4 Comments:
Interesting questions about the tundra. Sounds like a remarkable place. How long have the permenant Scientists been there that they know th Polar Bear feeding habits at this time of the year?
Hi this is Matthew fromclass208. How many animals did you find.
Hi Pat,
Sounds like you are having a good time. Everything you are doing look very interesting. Can't wait till you come back and share everything you have learned.
See you soon.
Sabrina
Scientists have been researching polar bears for over twenty years at Churchill. The people who live here say that the media hyoe up the polar bear "crisis". They say that polar bears learn to adapt as people do to what the environment has to offer,. They look for the long term as environments change in any system and all living things have to learn to adapt in order to survive.
The animal life exists her but it isn't always out in the open. Animals hide from humans and the ones we saw were few and far between. We saw polar bears, foxes, wolf, arctic hare, grouse, snow geese, husky dogs, and other birds.
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