We started off the morning by going back into the forest and measuring the trees. The forests are measured in grids of 1 hectare. Hopefully you guys figured it out by now, but 1 hectare is about 100 meters by 100 meters. We then broke this up into smaller grids of 10 meters by 10 meters and measured all of the trees in the 10 by 10 meter area. That’s right, every single tree that had a DBH(Diamter Breast Height) of 1 cm or more. See, learning about the metric system actually comes in handy. Scientists really do use this stuff. So I actually learned a lot of the species of trees that are found in the forest around here like Beech trees, Red and White Oak, American Holly, Iron Wood, Hickory, and Tulip Poplers. Those are just a few of the main ones. What we did was record the DBH for each tree, the species of tree, where the tree is on the X and Y axis of the grid, where the tree is in relation to other trees(Dominant, Co-dominant, Intermediate or supressed) and if the tree is living, standing dead with the top fallen off, or standing dead with the top bent. And then we went on to measure these factors for all trees in the grid until we broke for lunch. We came back and did this again after lunch and throughout the day we only finished about three 10 by 10 meter areas. The scientists will be measuring about four different areas of 1 hectare so just imagine how many hours it will take these scientists to measure these plots of land. It is quite a task and as you can see, this is just one small study that needs to be done in order to see what the effects of climate change are to forests. As you can see, it takes a lot of patience to be a scientist, but it is great being out in the woods breathing the fresh air rather than sitting at a desk in an office all day long. See if you can answer the questions below:
1.What type of data needs to be collected as I take my measurements?
2.Why do you think the species of trees are important to measure?
3.Today we split up into about three teachers per group measuring on plots of 10 meters by 10 meters. If there is an average of about 10 trees per plot and it takes the three teachers about 1 hour to measure each plot, how long would it take for 15 bankers to measure the same plot of land. (Sometimes bankers from HSBC come to the same workshop that the teachers are participating in.) See if you can get Mrs. Wago to help.