Climate Change and Forests with Mr. Lewandowski

Last Day

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Lewandowski) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:51:00 +0000

For our last day here at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, we weighed samples of leaves that had fallen from the forest canopy into buckets that are in various places throughout the forests. The leaves are a part of the biomass that the scientists need to measure to determine how the forests are changing. I had an interesting conversation with some of the scientists here about what their thoughts are on climate change and what we can do to educate individuals about this. I was told that sometimes people are very closed minded and there is really nothing you can do to influence these people to do anything about climate change. However, science is about keeping an open mind. It's saying that I may not have the answer, but I am willing to look for it and I may be right or you may be right, but why don't we see if we can look at the data and analyze it and see if there are better decisions that can be made on concrete evidence rather than beliefs that have no reasoning behind them. I think this is a lesson that can be applied to many areas, not just climate change. Tonight we are going to have dinner and walk around Annapolis so I guess I will see you guys when I get back. Hope you enjoyed reading the blog.

1. List two things you learned from my trip

2. Look at the Earthwatch website. Which expedition would you most like to be a part of?

3. What did you like or dislike about the blogging sessions?

The Logged Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Lewandowski) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:58:00 +0000

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?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Lewandowski) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:38:00 +0000

Today, we started off by measuring all of the trees in our plots. It was basically the same thing as yesterday because we were categorizing which species of tree it was, the DBH, tagging the number to the tree, etc. One question that some of you had was how we can determine the CO2 content from the DBH. There is actually a math calculation that they use by plugging in the density of the wood, the height of the tree and the circumference. After plugging the numbers in the calculation, they can determine how much carbon is captured in that tree as well as the amount of carbon dioxide that would be given off if you burned the tree. There are also several other studies being done at the same time and after lunch, we had a chance to go up into a 120 foot tower to see how some of the scientists are measuring the atmospheric changes like temperature, ultraviolet light, as well as other variables dealing with climate change. After we walked up the tower, we went back into the woods to measure the amount of rainwater in various locations of the forest. I left a video clip of one of the scientists named Nancy Khan where she describes the process. We had a speech on climate change after dinner and it seems to me that a lot of scientists agree that climate change is occuring and if we don’t do something about the problem, there could be some major consequences to pay such as drought in some areas, flooding in others, disease, and water shortages among many others. I have a feeling that what they are saying is true. This is my feeling after reading a lot about the topic, watching the documentaries and listening to the experts, but you need to make up your own mind what you think about the situation. The scientist said that the number one thing that we can do to help solve climate change is to educate others to recycle and just simply to conserve electricty. Don’t leave lights on when you’re not using them, don’t let the heater or air conditioner run when you’re not home, don’t leave your computer on when not in use, don’t leave things plugged in when you’re done, etc. Electricity is the number one cause of carbon dioxide emissions so you really can make a difference. So here is your homework for tonight:
1. Tell me what you are going to do to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide you put into the air (will you turn off lights, shut off your computer when not in use, stop breathing – just kidding)
2. What will be some of the consequences if we don’t stop abusing our resources?
3. What do you think are some of the other sources of carbon in our plots besides the standing trees we are measuring?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Lewandowski) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:22:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Lewandowski) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:58:00 +0000

It has been really great reading over all of the excellent comments and questions that all of you have shared. I will try to reply as promptly as possible in getting to them. Today was our first day of learning about what is actually happening here at the SERC (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center). We started off the morning with a powerpoint presentation by one of the scientists explaining what the main goals are for each of the institutions (SERC, Earthwatch, and the Center for Tropical Forest Systems) that are working together here in Edgewater, Maryland. There are also various studies going on here as well that I will learn more about in the upcoming days. Since climate change is such a complex topic and one that will not be easily solved, the other teachers and I that are involved in the study will be focusing on one main topic: Does forest management influence stem and carbon dynamics in the forest at different developmental stages. For example, the scientists identify different parts of the forest to study such as a control area, a logged area, an immature forest area and a mature forest area. They then take various measurements of these trees to determine the amount of carbon that makes up the trees, in other words the amount of biomass that is in that particular area of the forest they are studying. This will let the scientists know how much carbon dioxide absorption is happening. In the morning, we actually walked to a few of the sites where the scientists are making these measurements and had some practice measuring the trees, which is what we will be doing in the next few days. I learned that the scientists make the land area measurements in 1 hectare areas.
After the scientists know how much carbon dioxide is being absorbed, it will be easier for politicians to make decisions about what we should do from here. For instance, should the politicians start charging carbon credits for the amount of carbon dioxide that industries are producing? Later, if the industries need to purchase carbon credits, they will need to know how much a new forest would cost as opposed to an old forest, which may be producing more carbon dioxide. They are actually doing this study in four other places in the world to determine if the trees will react differently in differing environments. At night, we discussed the cultural impacts of climate change and what we can do as teachers to influence the people we come in contact with to convince them that we should work together to find a solution to climate change. See if you can answer the questions below:
1. How many meters do you think there are in a hectare?
2. What do you think scientists use as a control variable in this study?
3. How do you think we can tell how much carbon is being absorbed by measuring the circumference of the trees in the 1 hectare plots?

Second Post

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Lewandowski) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:39:00 +0000

This is the second blog and the last one before I leave for my expedition. As we learned in class today from reading over the research overview, billions of people rely on trees and forests for shelter, fuel, medicines, stable soils, clean air and fresh water. It is vital that we protect our biodiversity because there are many resources in these forests that may have applications that are yet to be discovered. From the questions that I have been receiving from the students, I am excited to see that the students are thinking of questions that not only relate to the study that I will be doing, but also starting to think about solutions to these problems that we face. Beacuse of the large number of questions, I won't be able to answer all of them, but hopefully by communicating through this blog, I will be able to answer most of your questions. During this study, I will be in the Chesapeake Bay area to study the forest response to climate change. I will be working with some of the foremost forest scientists and institutions in the world at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to understand these forest processes. We will be researching the climate, tree response and animal responses using several different methods that we will be discussing in class before I leave. Since some of you had such good questions, I will leave you tonight with questions to answer from some of your fellow classmates:
1. How do scientists project future climate and how reliable are these predictions. (Thanks for the question Mhary)
2. Why is observing the forest important? (Thanks for the question Alex)
3. What exactly would happen if there were no forests in the world? (Thanks for the question Melvin)

And thanks for all of the good questions that many of you have been coming up with. Please make sure to follow along in my blog while I am away in Maryland. Enjoy. - Mr. Lewandowski

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Lewandowski) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:16:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to my blog about Climate Change and Forest sustainability. I am very privileged to have this great opportunity given to me by the Earthwatch program and HSBC. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be writing about how scientists are able to monitor climate change and the effects that climate change has on the sustainability of forests. We have all heard about global warming in the news media and many of us ask ourselves, what can I possibly do to help this situation? My answer to this question was to join Earthwatch to find out how scientists are doing these studies and bring those lessons back to my students to figure out what we can do to help protect our environment. I am hoping that you will join my quest as I learn more about climate change and how that climate change is affecting our planet. Who knows, maybe this will inspire some of you to go out and become the engineers of the future who will be developing the technologies that will get us out of the predicament that we are now in. Perhaps we can envision a world where our fossil fuel use is minimal and instead we are using wind, wave, solar, geothermal or any of the other creative uses of renewable energy that your young minds may create. Because climate change is such a broad and challenging problem, I am hoping that we can begin to make a change by studying how this climate change is affecting forest sustainability and how forest managers may be able to help protect these forests with the studies that we do. Here are a few questions to some of my students that are related to lessons we have been discussing and the expedition I will be going on:
1. Why do you think it is important to monitor forests throughout our country?
2. What types of variables do you think would be necessary for a study such as this?
3. How do the scientists working on this project use the scientific method in order to solve this problem?