The Logged Forest

This morning we started off with a PowerPoint presentation about climate change and the possible consequences of our actions if we don't do anything about it and we had a discussion about possible alternative energies and the positive and negative effects of each. Does that sound familiar to any of you? Hopefully it does since you should be prepared with presentations when I get back. After the presentation, I had a chance to speak with Period 1. It was great having a chance to speak to some of you and hopefully you got something out of it. It was also nice speaking to Period 3 yesterday. I think it's pretty cool that we can be so far away and still see and talk to each other. Sorry for the other periods, but there just wasn't enough time. After lunch, we had time to go to a logged forest and collect some data on the rain water. It's important to know how much rain water is coming down because the amount of rainwater coming through the canopy will effect the growth of the forest and we are measuring whatever will effect the growth of the forest. I included a picture of a logged forest so you can see the difference between the logged and unlogged. The loggers basically came in, took the trees they wanted for profit and left the ones they didn't need. Unfortunately, this will effect the carbon content in the forests negatively so that is why forest management is a part of this study. See if you can answer the questions below:

1. Go to another teachers blog that is a part of this study with me and ask them a question. Write down the question you ask and their response:

Mrs. Romney-
www.earthwatch2.org/lff/romney
Mrs. Scherer-
www.earthwatch2.org/lff/scherer
Mrs. Shannon-
www.earthwatch2.org/lff/shannon
Mrs. Catledge-
www.earthwatch2.org/lff/catledge
Mr. Chasse-
www.earthwatch2.org/lff/chasse
Mrs. Cahn-
www.earthwatch2.org/lff/cahn

2. Do you think global warming is occuring? Why or why not?

3. Why is collecting data important in a study like this?