Collaboration and Outreach from California to Connecticut

Spreading the Word and Sharing Inspiration with Educators from all over the Country and Back Home in New England

Long Term Ecological Research (L.T.E.R.) Network

 All Scientists Meeting 

Pacific Grove, California                                              September 29-October 4, 2018

Harvard Forest  Director of Education, Clarisse Hart, announced the winners of the  national Undergraduate Poster Contest to over 400 participants in the LTER A.S.M.   She helped organize in honor of former Virginia Coastal LTER Educator, Arthur Schwarzschild.

Teacher, Melanie McCracken, of Groton-Dunstable H.S. presented  how she engages students in working with data from the HF Schoolyard Ecology  "Buds, Leaves and Global Warming" project.  Melanie showed examples of how students struggle to accurately record and represent project data. She discussed strategies she uses to improve data literacy among her students, as part of a conference workshop focused on Data Literacy.

A Teacher from the Luquillo LTER site  also shared her strategies in using LTER Education projects to enhance data literacy among her High School Students in Puerto Rico.   

A mix of Educators, Scientists, Data Managers and Graduate Students participated in this series of  workshops organized by the  LTER Ed. and Outreach Committee.  HF Data Manager, Emery Boose, Project Coach, Fiona Jevon, and Schoolyard Coordinator, Pamela Snow also participated in these workshops.  

And, Yes, we got to play outside too!  Scott Simon of the Santa Barbara Coastal LTER, led the Education group in a hands on exploration of tide pools.




"Our Changing Forests" Project Coach, Fiona Jevon, (center of left photo) shares her Poster about the process of creating a "Data Nugget" lesson plan about Harvard Univ. Scientist, Bill Munger's, Eddy Flux Tower Research. Data Nugget Staff Melissa and Elizabeth are pictured on either side of Fiona.

The link to this Data Nugget can be found at:  DataNuggets.org/2018/08/harvard-forest-climate-change/


Audrey Barker-Plotkin-Senior Ecologist, (right photo) Site Manager and "Our Changing Forests" Project Ecologist shared a poster showing a summary of major research and education efforts at Harvard Forest.

 Groton Dunstable H.S. Teacher, Melanie McCracken shared a poster about her work developing curricula to broaden understanding of land use change from study plot  to town scale, using a combination of Harvard Forest-created Land Use Change Maps for her schoolyard and town as well as online tools such as Google Earth time slider, etc.

This curricular unit and others using these maps can be found on our website at:

 McCracken-YourTownHowWillitGrow- Map Curricula-2018.pdf

 For More on the LTER Network go to :

Back East

 Glen Urquhart School Teacher, Emilie Cushing, presenting at the Mass.  Assoc. of Science  Teachers  Conference in November.

Conference attendees participated in a hands-on activity calculating the approximate amount of carbon being stored in a variety of schoolyard sites  in Massachusetts and Connecticut using a learning activity developed by Emilie through the Schoolyard Ecology program.

GIS maps of Land Cover Change, that were used for this activity, were created by Research Assistant Joshua Plisinski from the Future Landscape Scenarios lab run by Ecologist, Jonathan Thompson.

Massachusetts  Association of Science Teachers Conference
Boxborough, Ma.
November  2018

 Connecticut

Belchertown High School Teacher, Louise Levy shared her land cover change activities at the  Connecticut Science Teachers Association Conference in Southbury, Ct.

This activity also involved calculating the amount of carbon being stored in schoolyards and towns using the GIS Land Cover Change Maps generated at Harvard Forest.

Louise also brought in other complimentary learning activities related to land use and mapping to build understanding around these themes.

Find Out More at:

Your Town; How Will it Grow? Lesson Plan. Mccracken-2018.pdf

Broadening Student Understanding Lesson Plan-Cushing-2018.pptx

Making Sense of Land Use Maps Lesson Plan. Levy-2018

HF Schoolyard/Town Land Use Change Maps

The New England Landscape Futures Project

Connecticut Science Teachers Association Web Page

Mass. Association of Science Teachers Web Page

 Long Term Ecological Network (LTER) Website

Many thanks to our funders, The National Science Foundation LTER Program; The Highstead Foundation, and Private Donors for allowing us to participate in these conferences. 

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STAY TUNED....

Looking at Data, Teacher Workshop coming up at Harvard Forest Jan. 4, 2018

Someone to Be Thankful For: Carey Lang, Project Coach

Field Support

Teachers at schools throughout Massachusetts are thankful for the help provided by Schoolyard Ecology Project Coach, Carey Lang.   With the support of the Hightstead Foundation, Carey has travelled to field sites from as far Southeast as Middleborough, to Beverly in the Northeast, and to South Hadley and Belchertown in Western Massachusetts, Carey also visited sites in Fitchburg, Lowell, and Worcester, helping to set up new plots for teachers participating in the Our Changing Forest plots.

Note that Tree Icon shows existing field site locations and yellow dots show new sites added in 2016.

Specifically, Carey has supported plot setup and/or data collection at the following locations this fall: 

South Hadley High School;  Hunking Middle School in Haverhill ; Applewild School in Fitchburg; Bartlett Community Partnership in Lowell; Middleborough High School; Worcester Academy; Belchertown HIgh School; Drumlin Farm  in Lincoln. and Glen Urquhart School in Beverly.  

Photos by Sally Farrow, Drumlin Farm, Massachusetts Audubon 

I was very excited to meet with Carey yesterday afternoon and get started on the Changing Forests Project- I think it is a perfect fit with my curriculum and she was a lot of help. 

-Emily Chamas, Applewild School, Fitchburg

Thanks again for sending Carey our way. She is wonderful and it was so great to have her working with our teens... we had a great session with the wildlife biologists.

 -Sally Farrow, Carrie Webster and Flavio Sutti, the leaders of the Wildlife Biologists club Drumlin Farm, Mass. Audubon 

Carey has been amazing! ... helpful, affirming, fabulous to have another adult, adding legitimacy because the kids know that there's a real scientist helping us do the project!

-Louise Levy, Belchertown High School

Online Support

In addition to visiting field sites in person, Carey has also reached out to all participating  Our Changing Forests Teachers throughout the fall.  

After helping to mentor teachers during the Summer Institute for Teachers in August, Carey reached out to all of the new Changing Forests teachers. Here is a short excerpt of her outreach at that time:

Hello all!  It was great to meet everyone today at the teacher workshop and I’m excited to get started on helping you set up your plots! I had the chance to speak with several of you before you left at the end of the day, but I did miss a couple of people....If you DO want my help setting up a plot, please reply to this email with several tentative dates and times....Also keep in mind that I am always happy to answer questions/help with plant IDs/troubleshoot problems over email or phone.

Once most of the plots were set up and data had been collected at field sites, Carey reached out to the group again to prepare them for entering project data. 

I want to start off by saying that it’s been really great to work with all of you and your students these past couple of months! I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you, and I’m happy with how each of your projects seem to be coming together. As we wrap up the field season, I wanted to leave you with some next steps for the database to help organize you. I know submitting your data might seem daunting, but the database is really very user friendly and, as always, I’m here to help if you need me. 

I’ve gone ahead and added both you and your school to the database, which means that you are now able to go in and add both your field site information, your site descriptions and your DBH measurements. 

Harvard Forest Demonstration Plot for Field Trip Groups

Carey also worked with Pamela Snow in creating a demonstration plot at Harvard Forest that can be used by visiting groups who would like to participate in hands-on citizen science as part of a field trip experience.  Some teachers do not feel comfortable leading a project at their school, but want their students to experience field ecology as an activity led by Harvard Forest staff.  

Carey developed a simpler version of the Our Changing Forests protocol for use by students visiting Harvard Forest. Students use the same type of field sheet as the Changing Forests students use.  She developed a field guide specific to the tree species present in the HF plot in order to make tree identification much more accessible to students.  

Carey worked with Pamela to set up 4 contiguous 10x10 meter plots at Harvard Forest, following the same protocol as the Our Changing Forests plots in order that data can contribute to the Schoolyard Ecology database.  Corner markers and tree tags are all in place for the next group who is ready to participate in monitoring this plot. Pamela has piloted this activity with 2 field trip groups and is looking forward to offering it as choice for future groups seeking a hands-on activity at the Forest.

Related Links for More Information

Our Changing Forests Project Information and Resources

HF Demonstration Plot Tree Guide by Carey Lang

Schoolyard Ecology Database  to download and/or graph Our Changing Forests Data

Highstead  to see other work related to natural landscape conservation, research and education. 

The Our Changing Forests Schoolyard Ecology Project Is Growing

New Beginnings for the Our Changing Forests Project

With an expanded online database and project coach on board, a new group of teachers participated in a 2 day Our Changing Forests Schoolyard Ecology Summer Institute at Harvard Forest.

After spending 2 days at Harvard Forest learning from experts such as project ecologist, Joshua Rapp and author, Tom Wessels, teachers are beginning to bring students out to monitor their study plots in woodlands throughout Massachusetts.   Students in grades 6-12, from as far southeast as Middleborough and as far northwest as Charlemont  will be joining forces to paint a picture of our region's changing forests.

Ecologist, Joshua Rapp introduced the Our Changing Forests Protocol and driving scientific questions to teachers in the Fisher Museum

 A cow in this wooded pasture was a great window into how historic land use has impacted the New England landscape we see today.

Ecologist Josh Rapp showed examples of Wildlife sign such as these woodpecker holes that can be reported on the site survey data included on the Harvard Forest online database.

The group looked at an example of beech bark disease
 as an example of pathogens to be reported on the
 site survey.

Teachers practiced measuring 

diameter at breast height.

Teachers practiced aligning plot lines with cardinal directions using a compass. 

Tree diameter and Species I.D. are among the data students will be collecting in order to monitor species composition, density, carbon biomass storage, etc. of their local woodlands.

        

 
Each teacher had an opportunity to participate in practicing setting up study plots in small groups,
with assistance from project staff.

What Teachers said about Day 1 of the Our Changing Forests 

Summer Institute:

•  I am very excited by all the aspects of this research with regards to my curriculum.

• Interacting with ecologists and colleagues interested in the same topics has given me suggestions for activities that I can implement in the classroom in addition to the Changing Forests program.

•  I appreciate that every opportunity was taken by the staff to give us the most pertinent information in order to get started.

• I am looking forward to using the many opportunities for students to experience real world science practice with all of its challenges and pleasures.

• I love that you already have identified the new MA ST/E standards that connect to this project

•  I think it is great that Carrie (Project coach) will be available as I think that having that help will be useful as we start off. 

• A much more finely honed sense of how to frame the project for my students, and how to integrate the Changing Forests project into my curriculum, and how to flex my curriculum to be inspired by the project!

• The ability to set up a plot and the confidence to have my students identify and track the trees in the area. I feel confident that I understand what is asked of the program and that my students will enjoy the process of being out in the field.

• The ability to set up a plot for a field study and the tools necessary to accomplish that.

• All 3 parts were valuable, the background knowledge, practicing the protocol and looking at the database.

• Participation in a LTER (Long Term Ecological Research site).

Reading the Forested Landscape with Tom Wessels

Day 2 of the Summer Institute for Teachers was spent immersed in interpreting the Forest with author and Professor Emeritus, Tom Wessels

Teachers were busy writing notes at each of the 

many stops in the forest.  

Teachers told us what they appreciated about their time with Tom Wessels

All participating teachers rated their time with Tom Wessels as "Extremely Useful".

• Exploring forests gives you an infinite subject for study. I love the idea of land-use history as a mystery that we can solve, in this case using Forest Forensics

• Hints on what to key in to when determining previous use of the land.

• EVERYTHING!!! I learned so much in that session!

• The talk of land use over time and how the species all interact, no species lives independent of others

• Better able to identify trees and more knowledgeable about their characteristics. Understanding land design and history. 

• The skills, equipment and access to knowledge and support to create a meaningful field research experience for my students.

• Split the plot into 4's. Use Oliver for land use through time. Changing Forests protocol may be discrete, localized data collection, but the opportunities to branch out (changing climate, land-use planning, biodiversity, etc.) are infinite!

• I appreciated the emphasis on observation skills and the intelligence of the trees which we can use to build upon the data collection and analysis

• Confidence that I can teach children about our changing forests.

 

Teachers are now set to begin marking study plots and  engaging their students in collecting forest data tracking change over time in their local woodlands. Project Coach, Carey Lang, is visiting school based field sites this fall to help teachers get started.  We look forward to supporting these citizen scientists throughout this school-year and hope that  we will be working with these schools for years to come.

The expansion of our outreach capacity for this project is made possible with support from the Highstead Foundation in addition to ongoing support from the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research program and other private funders.  

Learn More about the Our Changing Forests Schoolyard Ecology Project:

• Northshore Magazine Article featuring this project:  :http://www.nshoremag.com/September-2016/student-scientists
• Project Protocols and Resources: Our Changing Forests Webpages
• Online database: Harvard Forest Schoolyard Database

What did Spring Look Like for Harvard Forest Ecologists?

Two Harvard Forest Scientists share with us what spring looked like through the lense of their data.

From Ecologist Joshua Rapp:  

Joshua Rapp is a plant ecologist interested in how life history influences the interactions of plants with their environments, and ecosystem processes.  He is currently a Bullard Fellow at Harvard Forest, and will serve as the project Ecologist for the Our Changing Forests project Summer Institute for Teachers on August 25th.  

Maple Syrup Season

From the maple tapper’s perspective it was an early spring. You can see a graph comparing the past few years at HF and my comments on the maple sugaring season here:

Some excerpts from Joshua's website related to the maple syrup research give a summary of what Spring looked like in the world of Maple Syrup.  

I tapped the trees on February 1, the earliest I’ve tapped by more than 2 weeks, and collected sap throughout the first week of February.

March 30, 2016. The tapping season is officially over – cold nights and warm days of late have not resulted in dripping taps. This is not because the sap isn’t flowing in the trees; instead, the taps have become clogged with bacteria, which also clouds the little sap that does manage to drip from the taps. A warm spell 3 weeks ago caused the end of big flows, although sap continued to dribble out for a while, at least in the sugar maples. Overall, the early season was good for sap flow -second largest in the past 5 years, but only an average year for syrup since the sugar content of the sap was on the low side – second lowest in the past 5 years. I collected sap 25 times, the most I’ve done in a year. Most of the sap flows were low to moderate, but a few were quite high, including the 2 biggest one-day flows I’ve seen.

Maple and Oak Flowering: 

Joshua Rapp's research is looking to see connections between maple tree's production of sugar and masting.  Masting is a term that means synchronous production of seeds over large geographic areas. Think acorns or samaras.  Flowering is the precursor of fruit production so that is looked as as well.  It is thought that there is a tradeoff in energy the tree spends on sugar production vs. flower and seed production but it is not well studied. 

Re: Flowering this spring:  It was a slightly early and low-moderate flowering year for sugar maple. In the attached figure (below), a couple of sugar maples on the right side of the road are flowering, but the ones on the left side are not.

From what I observed, it was a very high flowering year for red oak, and the trees had many small 2nd year acorns. Red oaks take two years to mature acorns, so last year’s pollinated female flowers are small acorns this spring and will be full size by fall. This year’s fertilized ovules will become mature acorns next fall. It will be interesting to see if this results in two red oak mast years in a row (this year and next). 

 

Canopy View of Oak Flowering at Harvard Forest by Joshua Rapp

To see more about Joshua Rapp's Masting and Maple Syrup research go to his website at: 

http://joshuamrapp.com/2016/02/early-tapping-at-harvard-forest/

 To see recent articles and radio stories about Joshua's research this winter and spring, see:  

 The Post-Tribune, Chicago Tonight, and Indiana Public Radio each did articles about Josh's newest sample site at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. 

The Worcester Telegram ran a story. Climate Central also published a piece. Also see:  MassLive, WWLP-22News, the Westfield News and The Recorder. 

To see more about the Our Changing Forests Schoolyard Ecology project, go to:

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/Our_Changing_Forests

To begin the Our Changing Forests Schoolyard Ecology project for students in grades 7-12, see the flyer and registration form at:

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/sites/harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/files/Changing%20Forests%20flyer%20and%20form-2016.pdf

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From Buds, Leaves and Global Warming Project Ecologist, John O'Keefe: 

John O'Keefe has been studying tree phenology at Harvard Forest for 26 years.  He monitors when leaves emerge in the spring (bud break) and when the leaves drop in the fall (leaf fall) in order to determine whether the growing season is getting longer as a result of global climate change.  In summarizing his spring 2016  tree phenology research, John O'Keefe  had this to say: 

I  just finished entering this spring’s data and calculating the bud break dates.  As I suspected, despite the record warm winter and early spring, the cool, cloudy April really slowed things down and we wound up with quite a late spring.  Once the leaves emerged the weather warmed up and they developed fairly rapidly, so the 75% leaf development date wasn’t especially late.  This points out that it is really the weather during April and early May that determines when leaf emergence will occur.  

See graphs below from John O'Keefe: 

 Note that 2016 was one of the 5 latest 50 percent Budburst date from this 26 year study.  

Note that this graph shows the mean 75%  leaf development over 26 years.  This year seems to be later than average but not among the top 5 latest as was bud break.  

This is a complex figure showing the Mean 50%  budbreak, 75% leaf development and 50% leaf fall for 4 tree species all on one graph.  

Notes to help interpret the key:   Species ACRUBB stands for Acer Rubrum (Red Maple) bud break.  The BEALBB is a birch species bud break. QURUBB is Red Oak, QUALBB is White oak budbreak...ACRU 75 is the 75%Leaf development for Red Maple,  etc.  The ACRUL50 depicts the leaf drop date for Red Maple, and so on.    

It is helpful to see the overall trends all together here to see overall patterns.  The bottom set of lines shows Spring data over time while the top set of lines shows the fall data over time.  

To see more about John O'Keefe's own long term research go to:

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu:8080/exist/xquery/data.xq?id=hf003

To see more about the Buds, Leaves and Global Warming Schoolyard Ecology project for students in grades 4-12, go to:

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/buds-leaves-global-warming

To begin the the Buds, Leaves and Global Warming study, see our flyer and registration form for the Summer Institute for Teachers at:

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/workshops

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Profile of Excellence in Environmental Education

What does Excellence Look Like? 

Francis Parker Charter School Teacher, Judy Gibson was recognized at the Massachusetts State House this week for Excellence in Environmental Education. 

Judy Gibson is not the kind of person who draws attention to herself in the usual ways. She comes off as quiet and reserved.  She may appear to be sitting back, as she lets others take center stage. Throughout it all, she is carefully observing, listening and researching.  She then takes the information and opportunities she has gathered up, and works step by step at crafting meaningful experiences for her students.  Judy’s students are given the foundation from which they can become citizens who care about our earth and water; Citizens who know about our earth and water from direct experiences in their Middle School years, thanks to one teacher’s thoughtful approach to education.  This is the kind of experience I hope all students can receive in order to best prepare them to make wise choices about our natural resources as they mature into responsible citizens.




Judy has dedicated many years to providing Middle School students opportunities to delve deeply in exploring, researching and touching aquatic and terrestrial natural systems within reach of their school.  Judy is a key part of the middle school science team at Parker. She is one of three teachers, who do a great deal of collaboration in designing the natural science units.  Judy has engaged students in field research projects in their local environment, beginning with vernal pools in walking distance from their school, for well over 7 years.  In 2009, Judy added to the work she set up for her students to include a scientific protocol looking at hydrology of vernal pools in cooperation with  Harvard Forest Ecologist, Betsy Colburn. Judy not only succeeded in getting students to collect pool diameters, and depths, etc. at her own school, but she became a mentor for teachers at a network of other schools involved in this work as well.  Judy regularly presented the innovative curriculum and learning methods she developed at the Parker Charter School with teachers from a wide range of schools at teacher workshops, so that more students could benefit from this work.

Who Eats Who? 

In 2013, Judy led a group of teachers from the Parker Charter School in taking on an investigation of forest dynamics as a team.  She and her 2 colleagues teamed up with more ecologists at Harvard Forest. They led their students in setting up and monitoring a series of forested study plots in their schoolyards.  Their students have collected tree species and diameter data, observed sign of wildlife, invasive species and pests, and many other field site characteristics as part of this study in the past 3 years.  In contributing to this study Judy and her colleagues provide data that can be compared region wide to tell a story of land use change over time.  With this combined information, we can begin to get a better picture of how forests are changing throughout New England.

 Judy’s efforts have led to 20-150 students each year participating in authentic environmental field studies, as well as the broader reach of presenting and sharing materials and data with a network of over 100 teachers.  These students are getting the opportunity to be real scientists and to connect and learn about the water and earth around them.  Judy takes the extra time and effort needed to organize and manage working outdoors both during the school day and in after school group.  It is this kind of in depth dedicated work over the long term that makes Judy’s work stand out.  I am thrilled that she has been honored by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and the Environment for her outstanding work.

 

To learn more, go to the following links:

            

See Powerpoint slide presentations that Judy Gibson has shared with Schoolyard Ecology teachers: 

2015.Life in a Wicked Big Puddle-VP.pdf

2015.Starting The Our Changing Forests Projects-Year 1.pdf

.2014.Shepley Hill Vernal Pool.pdf

Find the Parker Charter School location on our interactive map and explore project data:

google.com.Schoolyard maps

More about the Our Changing Forests project:

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/Our_Changing_Forests

More about the Vernal Pool project:

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/water-landscape-vernal-pools

More about the Excellence in Environmental Education Awards:

.mass.gov.energy-and-environmental-awards