Another day of collecting data

Good day! We spent all day today out in the field again. We are surveying 10 x 10 sections of a hectare. Most of you answered the question correctly. A hectare is 2.417 acres of land. One group said that it was a little less than a football field which is a good way to figure out how much land we are surveying. So - there are 100 ten by ten sections in a hectare. Our team surveyed 10 sections today. I will be talking to you today so I am not going to write a bunch.

Here's the Kick Off question for Thursday: Look at the picture below. It shows how we have to mark trees. The metal tag has a number on it so the scientists here can track the trees' growth over the years. (No, the nail doesn't damage the tree at all.) But here's the question: As you can see, the nail is only driven into the tree a tiny bit. There is a very good reason for this. Why do you think we only drive the nail part of the way into the tree?

One of the activities we did yesterday was to climb a tower 120 feet high. It was about 20 - 30 feet above the canopy. Each flight of stairs was 12 steps and the landing counted as the 13th step. When you got to the top of the tower, it swayed in the wind.

At the top of the tower, there were several kinds of scientific instruments. Some found out how much carbon dioxide was in the air, some measured rainfall. One absorbed different colored wavelengths of light. They had the same set up on the ground. Question: Why would there be instruments up high and near the ground? Would they get the same readings?

There were also spikes all over the top of the tower. What do you think those are?

I just talked to Mrs. Bagnal. It seems that I was right to worry that some of you wouldn't behave. I won't be a very happy camper on Monday if you aren't good for the next two days. Later....

Before I call, think of questions you might want to ask me!