First Day in the Field

Wow! Thank you so much for all the thoughtful comments and questions, friends! Keep 'em coming!

Let me apologize in advance for all the moss and lichen pictures you may see this week—I “lichen” 'em very much and therefore feel compelled to photograph them!

What a jammed packed day!

















First order of business was all about our safety out here. Turns out we’ve come during deer hunting season. That’s right! But don’t worry; it’s a controlled hunt and a necessary one, in order to control the deer population. And don’t worry about me, either! All of us were given bright neon orange vests that must be worn at all times so we’re not mistaken for a deer. Whew!






































After our safety talk, we met Dr. Jess Parker, lead scientist here at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Climate Center. Jess took us out into the field and we learned how the trees are being tagged for the study. Here’s a brief clip:




I love that they’re using recycled materials for the tree labeling!

A lot of you have been wondering what I’ll be doing. In this study we will be identifying trees (mostly using bark and how the branches grow because the leaves are pretty much all gone by now), measuring the trees, and finally mapping them. Our measurements will be used as a “baseline,” and in five years these same trees will be measured again. The growth seen five years from now will give us valuable information about the health of the forest and its ability to take out or “sequester” carbon from the atmosphere.

Next, we learned some interesting techniques used to measure the trees. We were given clipboards, special tools and had to measure 16 practice trees. (This is an important scientific study so the scientists want to be sure that we can accurately collect the tree data. It’s really a bit complicated, but totally awesome!)

I made a video explaining how we measure the trees and what it tells us:



What? Huh? OK, you may need to do some work to understand what in the world I’m talking about. Do we remember what a diameter is? Circumference? Volume? Mass? Depending on your grade, I sure hope you do! If not, please take this opportunity to find out. Also, what's biomass? Check that vocabulary word out, too…

Everyone on my team measured within a very small percentage of error (look that up, too!) and so tomorrow we are off first thing in the morning to take measurements!

I leave you with this question: How much carbon is in YOU if carbon content is approximately half YOUR biomass?

Talk to you again tomorrow, young scientists!