Labman Arrives!!!

HIGH: 8°C
LOW : 5°C
SUNRISE: 7:08
SUNSET : 19:06
Hey Everyone - The weather today is gorgeous! It was in the high 40’s to low 50’s. Totally out of the ordinary. The problem is not usually the temperature as much as the wind. Once we were out on the tundra, the winds were really strong. This morning we looked at the forecast for the rest of the week and it is going to get cold. They are calling for -5 degrees Celsius with some strong winds. Therefore, we are going to really have to take a look at the wind chill factor. Cudahy kids, once again you guys amaze me with all of the wonderful comments and research you are doing. Although, I don’t understand how some of you guys are telling me you find so much information, but others say they can’t find anything. Mrs. Blunt would love to show you some sites to go on to find this information. I had several people tell me that I should be searching these words before I give them to you. Girls and boys, I do search them and I know what they mean and their importance to this world. The only things I am not searching on my own are the little stories of Churchill like the plane crash and the Ithaca. So, if I give you vocabulary words I know for sure you can find them on the internet. Do your best!! So, we had a visitor today. His name is Labman. He visited us from somewhere in the United States. Yes, he is a superhero that helps researchers speed up their data collection. I have included some pictures of Labman. He even took a picture with Curious George. We also found something interesting in the field today. A ROCKET!! In my first blog I asked you to find out what the CNSC building used to be. Well, it used to be a rocket launching site for the military. Back in the 50’s and 60’s the military launched between 15 and 20 thousand test rockets. You can see that while we were looking though the underbrush we found a rocket. Again, today was a long day in the field. We finished up our work on the point center quadrant data and moved to tree coring. I have included a video of me coring a tree. What do you think we core trees for? Another term for coring trees is boring trees. But then, we say we are working with “boring trees” hahaha. (I know I am a science geek.) While we were coring trees we also had to look at the general health of the tree. Some of the things we needed to look at are the herbivory, the general ground vegetation, the apical meristem, the vitality, branch height, how many upright stems, if it has cones or not, the root crown diameter, and the middle diameter measurement. The reason we have to look at all of this is to determine if the trees are surviving or slowing dying. This would determine the stability of the climate. As you can see we collect LOTS of data. Look at the pictures of the tundra. I included some pictures of the tundra up close and some further away. When you really get close to the tundra it looks like coral in the ocean. Although, it is real soft and when you walk on it, it feels like a sponge. The vegetation that looks like a sponge is actually called lichen. Cudahy kids: Look up the bold words. Also, look at the picture of me by the tree. Look how the middle area of the tree is dead. Why do you think the tree is growing like this? The bottom is real healthy and so is the top, but the middle is dead. Write in your journal. Finally, the picture below is a picture from the widow of my bedroom. What is covering the windows and why?