The Air Up There
A beautiful, sunny, cold morning…frost in the grass flashes like sequins. We continued our tree survey and finished our column of subplots in late morning. Our survey team split up, two of us (Romney and me) volunteering to enter the data in an Excel spreadsheet, while two others (Janice and Stacey) go off with Nancy to collect data from rain gauges, since it rained here Sunday. The rain gauge is very interesting: it has a metric side and an English side, and the graduations are not constant, but increase in value as you read from bottom to top of the gauge.
After lunch, we climbed a tower that holds instruments to make solar measurements. This tower rises 120 feet above the forest floor; 10 flights of steps. It sways somewhat in the wind. From the top you can see the Rhode River (really an estuary) and beyond it, the Chesapeake Bay. I’m attaching the video I took from on top.
Following this adventure, we all helped to gather rain gauge data from the remaining gauges. I’m also including some photos of this activity. Brad from Hawaii and I paired up to help this data collection. I guess we missed the fun, though… In the other group who worked the plot across the road, Loren from California climbed into a hollow tree. “That’s weird,” he said. The other teachers were laughing uproariously. Loren hadn’t realized that a squirrel had jumped onto his back from inside the tree and scampered out down his rear end! It may end up on YouTube yet.
This evening, one of the scientists will be presenting a lecture on climate change, so I’m signing off for now. Watch out for those sneaky squirrels!
After lunch, we climbed a tower that holds instruments to make solar measurements. This tower rises 120 feet above the forest floor; 10 flights of steps. It sways somewhat in the wind. From the top you can see the Rhode River (really an estuary) and beyond it, the Chesapeake Bay. I’m attaching the video I took from on top.
Following this adventure, we all helped to gather rain gauge data from the remaining gauges. I’m also including some photos of this activity. Brad from Hawaii and I paired up to help this data collection. I guess we missed the fun, though… In the other group who worked the plot across the road, Loren from California climbed into a hollow tree. “That’s weird,” he said. The other teachers were laughing uproariously. Loren hadn’t realized that a squirrel had jumped onto his back from inside the tree and scampered out down his rear end! It may end up on YouTube yet.
This evening, one of the scientists will be presenting a lecture on climate change, so I’m signing off for now. Watch out for those sneaky squirrels!
Labels: forest trees solar rain
posted by Mrs. Scherer @ 7:09 PM
11 Comments:
It is great that you are having so much fun. your pictures of the tower made me so nervous because im so afraid of hights and to hear people are climbing something that sways makes me nervous. haha. I wonder if you and the guy from hawaii miss warmer weather yet? its pretty warm here.
Thanks for your post, James. Our Smithsonian Institute technician is also afraid of heights, but over time, has conquered it enough to climb to the top. It did sway and shudder a little, but not terribly bad. Brad from Hawaii says he does miss the warm weather but is having a great time.
Hi Mrs. Scherer,
I read about your past days of a great thankgiving break, starting from the day of thanksqiving. I know you dont want to come back, haha. But That tower is the most scariest thing i've ever seen! It must of took yall forever and like 10 breaks to get up there. At the top of the tower though, how does the uncontaminated bucket of rain or the rain machine know the difference in the rain, and how does it know which bucket to go in? Also with the atmosphere machine, what's the farthest distance it measures? Sorry I asked so much but this is really interesting, like I thought you were doing something totally different. But when you can, comment back (:
oh p.s Im ready to be lectured with notes, not learn from handouts (:
-Breajanae
HEY MRS. SCHERER I LOOKED AT YOUR WEB SITE AND ITS COOL! I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO REPRESENT THAT I WENT HERE SO I'M JUST GONNA LEAVE A COMMENT.
Lacy
sixth period
Dec 4,2008
that sounds like so much fun i remember the chesapeake bay its really nice there. how big is the property there.
What did you find in the rain water you collected?
How do you measure sunlight(solar energy), and in what units?
I was curious-How tall is the tower? Also, is it a certain height, or is it at a height at which the information for the sunlight would be most accurate (accounting that trees could make the data a little inaccurate if their shade blocks whatever is used to measure the sunlight)?
How do you make a graph out of the data that you collect from your observations?
Scott Yamamoto
Brad Lewandoski's Period five class
Aiea High School
P.S. I'm really happy I don't live in the mainland this time of year. Must be chilly.
Breajanae, good question, thanks. The rain machine is triggered to open by the force of the raindrops, so it collects ONLY uncontaminated rain. Ryan, he rain gauges we empty have all kinds of things in them, like mosquitoes and leaves. Arielle, I'm glad you like the website; thanks for commenting. Matt, the property here covers 2,800 acres. Scott, I'm not entirely sure what units are used in these instruments, but some I've used before measure sunlight in lux or in lumens.
When i was in 5th grade my class and I took a trip to a place called John Nox for three days and the tower in your pictures reminds me of the one i had to climb up. i was terrrrrrified because i dont really like heights at all. But while we were there we did most of the stuff that you've been doing. We also helped control the ceder trees that were taking over and cut the baby ones with clippers. it was a very fun experience and i bet you had fun also.
That's hilarious with the rouge squirrel incident. Being in your 8th period class, I would love it if you could tell me if that video does end up on You-Tube. You really should have put that little video snipit on this blog along with the solar-equipment tower video(which I might add looked so cool). I have to agree with James hill, TALL, SWAYING, TOWERS ARE SCARY AS HECK. I'd probally freak on the ground looking up let alone climb 120 feet in the wind with the fear of slipping and falling all 10 flights of stairs brathing down my neck. Plus being lazy and highly out of shape, I'd give up or rest after 3 or 4 flights(thankfully I don't have astma like my mom, otherwise I would pass out and fall after 4 or 5 flights!).
How scary! But I'm really glad you had such a good time. :)
-Elisa Colera
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