Today we did LOTS of tree coring. We only cored white spruce trees. That is all that we found in the part of the forest where we were coring. Dr. Foo Foo helped me out. I made a video of us coring a tree but had a little trouble uploading it. I'm hoping to put it up later tonight when the other teachers aren't using their computers.

I was surprised to find out that there are only four trees that grow here. White spruce, black spruce, larch and balsam poplar trees. The larch is a conifer (has needles) and loses those needles in the fall. They are beautiful right now. They have yellow needles and dark trunks. The balsam poplar trees are the only trees that have leaves.


Here is a document that you can open to see a photo I took of just some of the tree cores that we collected. Can you see the rings? You can see that they can be difficult to count. Click on the blue "tree%20core%photo.doc" to see the photo:
tree%20core%20photo.doc

This is a photo of some interesting lichens growing on a white spruce branch. What do they look like to you?









Here is another insect for you to try to identify. Dr. Foo Foo doesn't know what it is. He doesn't know what the other insect is either. That is why we are asking you to help us identify them.




I was also lucky enough to see this pupa skin. I saw it dangling from a white spruce branch. It looks like something hatched from it. I wonder if it came from a caterpillar like the one in the photo above. What do you think?





I know that quite a few of you sent me questions today. I'm going to try to answer as many as I can. I'll be answering some of your questions in the comments section and some on my next blog. If I don't get to your question I might be able to answer it this Friday when we go live! I'll be interviewing Mr. Mamet, the scientist from the University of Alberta. He is the one working with us here. Mr. Kershaw is the lead scientist on this project. He will be coming here this weekend. I'm looking forward to meeting him.

Keep your fingers crossed for more video clips!

Miss Santoro