Field Work in the Rain

Today we went out to one of our data collection sites, "Rocket Lake." It started out as a beautiful day, at almost 50 degrees and sunny. I was in a group with 4 other teachers and we were working on collecting data on trees and plants in the forest, forest-tundra, and tundra zones. We were doing what is called point centered quarters, where we find the nearest seedlings, saplings, and adult trees to different points that have already been set up using GPS coordinates. We started in the forest and my job was crawling around looking for tiny seedlings in between other plants that looked almost exactly the same. Most of the seedlings were less than 2 cm (less than 1 inch) tall. The researchers can use the data we collected to find out how well different plants are going in these biomes, and how fast they are growing, or how fast their growth rate is changing, as the climate changes. When we started out in the forest, we saw lots of trees, but as we moved closer to the tundra, we saw less and less. Even the trees we did find were very short and stunted. Look up a definition for "tundra" and see if you can tell me why you don't think there are any tall trees there.

While we were out on the tundra, it started to rain. It was very windy and with no protection from any trees, it felt almost 20 degrees colder (the wind chill was 29 degrees) .  We tried our best to keep doing our data collection, but as it got dark from the clouds and the rain was blowing across the tundra, it got very difficult to see anything. The teacher who was writing down our data, Mr. Griffith (who teaches in Brooklyn), had to try to cover up under a poncho to keep our paper dry. We finished up our data collection for the day, then went back to the study center to dry off and warm up. (I'm actually in this picture too!!)