Climate Change and Forests with Ms. Scherer

Finished!

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:41:00 +0000

The Comanche Lookout Park Listening Post project is finished! Yesterday I mailed out the CD of the recordings to the city forester at San Antonio Parks & Recreation. I haven’t been notified that the physical posts are installed, but I was assured that they would be as soon as I marked where they should go, and I did that last week.

Now all I need is to do some publicity so that people know the trail is there and how it may be used. I think the students got something out of the experience… at least I hope so! Maybe we’ll even be able to extend the trail next year and add more posts. It really all depends on the enthusiasm of the students. I’m happy to do anything that gets the kids outside and interacting with their natural environment. It seems there’s so little of that these days!

I’m leaving on Friday to return to Miami to visit family there. I may stop and take pictures on the way again, and I’ll post them here. The picture above is a Spanish Dagger yucca that is featured on one of our Listening Posts. Ta!

Community Project Update

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Sorry it's been so long between posts! Life has a habit of getting in the way of my blogging. I have been working on my community project, though. My AP Environmental Science class and I met with our urban forester Michael Nentwich at Comanche Lookout Park near Madison at the end of February. We identified numerous trees and woody shrubs, while Mr. Nentwich gave us some interesting background information and we took copious notes. After Spring Break, my APES class and I returned to the park to decide where best to place the listening stations. My next task is to speak to our wood shop teacher again and get information on where to buy the wood for them to make the listening station posts. Then my APES students will be tasked to write scripts. I hope to finish before the end of school but we have so much to accomplish: TAKS testing, AP testing, general end-of-year craziness. I'll post a few photos from our last Comanche park visit. Enjoy!

Let's Keep the Conversation Going

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:50:00 +0000

I think we've seen and discussed interesting things in this blog. As part of my contract with Earthwatch, I've promised to do some project to involve the community in conservation. So I plan on posting my progress here and I hope my students, or their parents, or others in the Madison HS community, or heck, purt near ANYBODY, will comment and discuss the project here.

My project idea is based on a newspaper article I read in October, before I was awarded the Earthwatch fellowship. The article detailed a yearly nature walk by visually impaired persons at Comanche Lookout Park here in San Antonio. Here's my idea: to involve the Lions' Club, San Antonio Parks and my APES (or other Madison students) to identify the plants along the trail, post markers and provide a Podcast that can be downloaded to assist people in learning about native and non-native plants in our area. Tell me what you think here.

Promises to Keep

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:54:00 +0000

Our group was split up today. Four of us went back into the forest to work on surveying the trees in column 7. One of us stayed inside to check the data that was entered yesterday. Two more went to weigh the leaf litter that had been collected, sorted and dried last week.
It amazes me, the use to which the forest has been put. Loggers and owners collect and sell the trees for wood, which of course the nation requires for many uses: home building, furniture, paper. Hunters use the woods for recreation (once it was actual food-gathering, but we no longer depend on it). The forest is used by scientists to understand our world better, and by teachers who want to educate our populace on the importance of forests. To say nothing of the food and shelter it provides for the non-human species. What mysteries are still hidden in the mossy trunks and fallen leaves of the forest? What connections are there that we have not discovered? What medicines might be found, or foods, or other new uses? I feel privileged to have been a part, however small, of this great effort to study this mesmerizing ecosystem.
Here’s a challenge: how many forest products do you use daily?
This afternoon we listened to a short lecture by Jess Parker, the Principal Investigator for this project. He explained to us the importance of this project in terms of understanding forest structure and how it may change due to climate change. Then, this evening we spent some time together eating dinner and shopping in Annapolis. All in all, I met a great group of people and had a terrific experience. Tomorrow is a travel day; we’re all leaving to return to our homes. See you on Monday!

Whose Woods These Are

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:08:00 +0000

Today was a little warmer and more overcast; rain is expected tonight and tomorrow will be a little colder. It feels cold until I get moving climbing over downed logs in the logged study plots to get to the rain gauges. Then I feel quite warm. It’s very sad to see the logged area… there are weak, scraggly trees still standing, some of them dying. There are large logs just left to rot. I wonder why they cut them if they weren’t going to haul them off. It reminds me of stories of the buffalo hunters, how they would slaughter and skin a herd, then leave the rest of the animal to rot.
I feel what I’m doing here is so important, and yet what I do every day is even more so: educating the youth of our country in science, especially environmental science. We know and understand so little of the relationships among organisms, and we are destroying whole ecosystems at an alarming rate. In the end, I fear we will destroy ourselves, not by war or nuclear attack, but by cutting the strands of life that bind organisms together until our world falls apart. We need to protect the living things around us, because we and they form an “uber-organism”, like the different cell types in a single human body. By protecting our environment, we protect our species as well.

The Air Up There

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:09:00 +0000

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!

Finally... Forest!

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:56:00 +0000

At last I have arrived in Maryland. It was quite early this morning, 1 am to be precise. I fell into bed trying not to disturb my roommate, Janice from New Orleans. I slept exhausted but comfortably until 7 am this morning. I’m pumped, though, and the adrenaline has kept me going all day.
I met my teammates at breakfast (we make our own, but the pantry is well stocked). They are all incredibly intelligent, articulate and sensitive people from all over: Hawaii, California, Oklahoma, New York, Louisiana, and New Jersey. We all teach, but the grade levels and subjects vary widely, from 3rd grade through middle school to high school. The little video I’ve included here is a short introduction of the team I worked with today.
We assembled at 8:45 to receive our instructions and equipment from the technicians Jess and Nancy, who are wonderfully knowledgeable about the temperate deciduous forest. Here follow some technical details, science buffs…
The area, a former farm, is sectioned into plots called hectares (10, 000 m2). Each hectare is divided into subplots of 100 m2 (10m x 10 m). Remember our quadrats, APES? Same thing, just larger. Each hectare’s subplots are assigned a row and column number, basically X-Y coordinates. We were split into 2 teams of 4 and given a column of subplots to work on. My team of four, Janice, Stacy, Kate and I, were assigned column 6, and we began with row 1, so the first subplot is called 6-1. In each subplot, we measured “diameter at breast height”, or DBH for every tree over 1 cm in diameter (no calculating here, APES: they have special tape measures that convert the circumference to diameter). We gave each tree a unique number, and recorded its position in the subplot using X and Y coordinates. In addition, we classified the tree crown as dominant(the highest), codominant(maybe not quite so high), intermediate (reaching for the sky but not there yet)or suppressed (understory). We made additional notes about whether the tree was living, dying or dead (but still rooted), about damage and pretty much anything else we observed.
So, here’s today’s challenge: what is a tree’s connection to climate change? In other words, how do trees make a difference (or do they?) in global warming. Hint: what do trees withdraw from the atmosphere that may be causing problems?

The photo at the top, BTW, is a fungus growing on a stump. What trophic level do you think the fungus belongs on?

Some Days You're the Pigeon

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:57:00 +0000

… and some days you’re the statue. Yesterday I was the statue. I wrote this post stuck in the Atlanta airport, a consequence of a weather hold causing a 2-hour ground delay in San Antonio, which in turn caused me to miss my connecting flight to Baltimore. What’s worse, I couldn’t get a rebooking before tonight at 9:20 pm!
There is a silver lining to this cloud… my daughter Jennifer came to get me. She lives in Macon, a law student. So bonus! I get to spend some time with her. But negative… she has to study. And my bags are checked to BWI, so… I needed to buy another toothbrush! This isn’t turning out the way I had pictured it. But life can be like that. Nature can be unfriendly… sometimes downright lethal. We should never forget we are a PART of nature, not APART from nature. So I’ll post some pix of my Florida trip and try to relax. The picture you see here is, I believe, a black mangrove. In the lower left corner you can see some of its adventitious roots (think they're called pnuemophores?) that stick up to provide the plant with oxygen. I took this photo just after crossing the Tampa Skyway bridge.

Giving Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 02:37:00 +0000

The turkey has been dissected, the pumpkin pie devoured, the football game is on. But there is so much more for which we can be thankful. First on my list is family, and the opportunity to visit them way here south in Miami. There are many other blessings on my list, too: my husband and I are both working, for example. We are in good health. Our children are making us proud.
But special for me is the opportunity to observe and share creation. The wondrous complexity of our world, our universe, never fails to amaze me. Some say this intricacy is itself evidence of a Supreme Being, a creative Intelligence that designed all we see. Others observe evolution (more fact than theory!) and do not see a need to credit a Higher Power. Still others feel that these two views are not mutually exclusive.
However you think or believe, I hope you enjoy the photos and videos I post here, and learn a little about our world. And give respect… and thanks… where due.

The picture above was taken at the Paynes Prairie rest stop off I-75 in Gainesville, Florida. The gray strands hanging like tinsel from the live oak tree is Spanish Moss, an epiphyte that is not parasitic.

Monet and Me

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:48:00 +0000

Art, you might say, is in my blood. My mom was an artist and my brother and one of my sisters have some artistic talents. I can’t draw or paint, but I was certainly raised with an appreciation of the great artists in history. Paintings in particular interest me; I find myself fascinated by color in nature and often wonder how I could reproduce those on a canvas (as if!). Maybe someday I’ll take a watercolor course or something. Anyway, here’s a thread to post your forest art!

We Are What We Smell

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:08:00 +0000

According to Joan Maloof in Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest, “Researchers working in the Sierra Nevada of California found 120 chemical compounds in the mountain forest air—but they could identify only 70 of them!” She also discusses the Japanese therapy of wood-air bathing, which supposedly reduces the blood sugar level of diabetics who walk in the forest. As a type 2 diabetic, I find this intriguing. You science students out there… how could I test this theory (not truly scientifically) on myself? Of course, to be valid science, numerous diabetics would have to participate in a study with a control group. But I’d still like to give this a shot, so help me design a little personal study that will mean nothing to anyone but me. Maybe someday, a doctor will prescribe a daily walk in the woods as a treatment, rather than a daily pill.

A Walk in the Park

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:46:00 +0000

I went for a walk in Stone Oak Park yesterday with my husband and my black Labrador, Maximus. It was a beautiful November day in San Antonio, clear skies, about 75°F. I took video and still photos of the area which I’ll post here as soon as I figure out how to do that. Because I had a FABULOUS idea!

For Thanksgiving, we are traveling to visit my family in Miami. We’ll take I-10 through Houston, Beaumont, Orange, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, Mobile, Pensacola and Tallahassee. Then we’ll take I-75 through Gainesville, Ocala, Orlando, West Palm, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I’d like to take videos and still shots of some of the forests I’ll be in or near. Like to help me? Research and suggest some national forests or parks on the way for us to stop for photos. Then we can discuss and compare and otherwise ready ourselves for the Sustainable Forest & Climate Change field experience!

I’m a Tree Hugger; How About You?

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:25:00 +0000

11/7/08
I’m a Tree Hugger; How About You?

When he heard about my upcoming trip to Maryland for the Sustainable Forests Expedition, a friend of mine loaned me a book, Teaching the Trees by Joan Maloof. In it, the author quotes a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Way In”:
“… but with your eyes
slowly, slowly, lift one black tree
up, so it stands against the sky: skinny, alone.
With that you have made the world.”

I have made some trees my friends over the years by doing just that. One looked to me like a woman, head thrown back in defiance of fate, arms open wide to embrace life. Another looked for all the world like a dragon, rearing back and spitting fire. Scientifically, I know our minds seek to impose order on chaos, to find patterns where none may exist. But I also know that trees touch more than my rational mind; they are more than schelernchyma, cork and cambium, xylem and phloem. They touch a spot in my soul that needs shade from the sunshine of rationality.

Today’s challenge then… find a poem or other work of literature in which trees play a main role. How does this depiction touch you? For the clueless: check out Joyce Kilmer or Robert Frost.

My First Post

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs. Scherer) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:16:00 +0000

Hi! I'm testing my blogging capabilities with this post. I'm super excited about this research opportunity. So here's a question for my APES students: In what biome will I be working during my week in Maryland? What kind of weather can I expect? (Ok, that's two questions!) Look here for more discussion soon!

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noreply@blogger.com (Earthwatch Institute: Live from the Field) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:13:00 +0000

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