How are Teachers Looking at Schoolyard Data?

Schoolyard Ecology Teachers from New York, Connecticut. and Massachusetts returned to Harvard Forest this January to deepen their understanding of project data.  Here is a snapshot of what they worked on...

Brooklyn Technical High School Teacher, Elisa Margarita, chose to adapt the new online graphing tool exercises for use by her students.  Above are some excerpts from what she was able to draft during the data workshop, using her school's Buds, Leaves, and Global Warming project data and the northern most site as found on the field site map and data base. Elisa will also incorporate some of the content from Dr. Betsy Colburn's workshop slides to help students better understand visualizations of project data. 

Greater Lowell Technical School Teacher, Tara Alcorn, worked with Project Ecologist, Dr. David Orwig to create this representation of data collected at Harvard Forest using the Schoolyard Ecology Woolly Bully and the Hemlock Tree protocol.  Using a trend line, Tara is able to show a relationship between the number of egg sacs and the amount of new growth of  Hemlock trees.  Not surprisingly, the more egg sacs, the lower the amount of new growth is found.

Groton-Dunstable High School Teacher, Melanie McCracken, was mentored by Choate-Rosemary Hall Teacher, Joseph Scanio in working with a data visualization software, called  Tableau.  The three figures above were among the data representations they created.  While Melanie was impressed with the potential using this tool, she was disappointed to learn that it is very challenging to access it on Chromebooks, which is the hardware her students use at school.  Another teacher had hoped to participate in the Tableau session but when he found out about the issue with Chromebooks, he moved in to another break out session to work on graphing with Google Sheets.  We are finding most teachers especially in the public schools, relying solely on Google hardware and software.  This, brings up issues of who controls what students have access to in the classroom, that are beyond our control in providing professional development to teachers.  Given that limitation, there is still the possibility that these teachers could: A. Find a workaround to using Tableau on Chromebooks and B.  Develop visualizations like this on their own PCs, etc. in order to use as teaching tools that ask the students to interpret the representations rather than create graphs themselves.

Massachusetts Audubon Educator, Sally Farrow, made progress in graphing her impressive vernal pool data sets from Drumlin Farm and Concord Middle School using Excel, with the help of Dr. Betsy Colburn.  These data representations will serve as teaching tools for the hundreds of students that come to Drumlin Farm each year to participate in data collection there.  Concord Middle School students will have a new tool to better understand patterns of water level changes over time even given years of missing data using the bar graph above.

Connecticut Audubon Educator, Marge Porter, with the help of  Schoolyard Ecology Project Coach, Fiona Jevon, was able to create pie charts showing species composition of both study plots and a a bar graph  of tree diameter by individual trees over 2 years.  Marge is learning how to add data representation to the ways she coaches teachers at nearby schools in Connecticut, in participating in the Our Changing Forests project.

Williston School Teacher, Jane Lucia, was mentored by HF Research Assistant, Joshua Plisinski, and Project Ecologist, John O'Keefe, in developing this series of graphs showing how the timing of leaf drop differs by species at her site over time, using Buds, Leaves and Global Warming data.

Harvard Forest staff and Mentor Teachers supported participants in reaching their data management and representation goals as needed.

 

Ecologist, Dr. Betsy Colburn provided an Introduction for all participating teachers and then teachers broke into self designated breakout groups by experience and focus.

 HF Information Manager, Emery Boose, introduced first year teachers to the process of data input and management, using the online database he designed for HF Schoolyard Ecology.

Links to Explore More:

New This Year:

Boose, E. 2020. HF Schoolyard Carbon Biomass Reference Graph.

Snow, P., Boose, E. 2020. Buds-Leaves Online Graphing Exercises.(Draft)

Snow, P., Boose, E. 2020. Hemlock Woolly Bully Online Graphing Exercises.(Draft)

Snow, P., Boose, E. 2020. Changing Forests Online Graphing Exercises. (Draft)

Snow, P. 2020. Teacher Created Graphs 2020.pdf

Updated this Year:

Boose, E. 2020. Intro to HF Schoolyard Data Management. Presentation

Colburn, B. 2020. Intro to Data Visualization Workshop. Presentation.

Colburn, B. 2020. Show Me a Picture, Tell Me a Story; Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology Program: Level II & III Data Analysis Workshop. Presentation.

Existing Resources Used at This Year's Workshop:

Colburn, B. 2019. Data Workshop Graphing Exercises.

Snow, P. et al. 2019. Teacher Developed Graphs and More; Harvard Forest Looking at Data Workshop.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:

Harvard Forest Spring Symposium; March 17, 2020  including Education panels and discussion
Phenocam Workshop for Teachers:  Northern Arizona University, March 12-14, 2020
Spring Workshop For Teachers:  April 9, 2020
Summer Institute for Teachers :  Tentatively scheduled for Aug.18 and 19, 2020.  

Athol-Royalston Middle School Experiences Our Changing Forests Field Trip Style

 

Athol-Royalston Middle School Seventh Graders in Mr. Sautter's Science classes visited Harvard Forest this Spring to learn about how forests change over time.

Our Changing Forests Field Work

Students measured the diameter of trees
in  10 x 10 meter study plots at Harvard Forest
 for the Our Changing Forests
Schoolyard Ecology project. 

Some interesting discoveries near the study plots included a tree frog, mushroom, Red Eft Salamander and oak gall.

 

We learned about major changes happening in this part of the forest.  In looking up to estimate the percent of canopy cover for the field survey, we saw that many of the biggest trees in the plot were dying.  This was an old Red Pine plantation that was planted when Harvard Forest was a Forestry School.  As the the old plantation trees are dying and other species are finding enough light to sprout and grow

 

 Hemlock and Oak are some of the new species growing as the dying Red Pine open up the forest floor.

 

We looked at the difference between red and white pine cones and needles.



We recorded whether we saw snapped trees and/or uprooted trees as indicators of weather damage in our study plots.

Left: We recorded signs of Wildlife such as this stash of pine cones indicating that a squirrel or chipmunk has been looking for pine cone seeds.  

Right:  We tasted the wintergreen flavor of the  inner bark of the Sweet Birch trees near the plot.  

Fisher Museum Dioramas

Students also had a chance to learn more about Land Use Change by seeing the story of how the forests were cleared in the 1700-1800s and began to grow back again  after farm abandonment later on.   First dominated by White Pine, cut again and then grew as Hardwood dominated forests. 

Thanks to ARMS PTO representative, Stacey Bellabarba and staff person, Elaine Gauthier for photo contributions.

What does the Data Show?

 

 

 Red Pine, Red Oak and Red Maple are storing lots of Carbon presently as Red Pine continue to dominate this area of the forest.  Also there is not much species diversity in these plots due to its history as a plantation.  It will be interesting to see that as the forest is left unmanaged by humans, how the species dynamics and growth will change over time.  As we collect data over time, I would expect that Red Pine bars will become shorter and shorter, and other species will become larger. I would also expect that some species not yet represented here, will begin to sprout and grow in these plots. Therefore I would expect more bars to appear on future graphs. However disease and weather can cause unexpected "disturbance" in the forest at any time, so stay tuned by checking our database over time to track future changes.


Thanks to Highstead Foundation for Supporting this field trip with funding for the Our Changing Forests Field Trip Scholarship.

Explore More:

To Graph More Data , choose Our Changing Forests project and choose field sites 5-8 on our online database.

Download Data to see the data in table form. 

Check out our Interactive Field Site Map to see all Schoolyard Ecology Field Sites that are contributing to our studies. You can select Our Changing Forests to see only those schools participating in this particular study.

Go to  Our Changing Forests Project Webpages to learn more about the Our Changing Forests project and protocol.

Attend our Summer Institute for Teachers on August 22, 2018.  

To join our Network of Schoolyard Ecology, we invite teachers from throughout the North East to 

 Apply for a   Field Trip Scholarship 

What's New with the Woolly Bully?

Schoolyard Ecology participants continue to contribute to the larger picture of how the tiny Hemlock Woolly Adelgid is impacting one of our most common trees.

 Harvard Forest Field Trip

Photos by Karen Anderson

Students from the MacDuffie School in Granby, Ma. visited Harvard Forest this spring to meet Schoolyard Ecology Project Ecologist, David Orwig in person.  David showed students what the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid looked like on trees at Harvard Forest and up close under the microscope to better understand the lifecycle of the invasive species that is causing significant change in New England Forests right now.

David Orwig provided the following update about his hemlock woolly adelgid research here at Harvard Forest:   

A field mortality survey was conducted during the summer of 2016 in 4 of the 35 hectares of forest in the megaplot on Prospect Hill,  around the hemlock eddy flux tower.  Findings suggests that areas of Harvard Forest are already experiencing a rapid loss of hemlocks as a result of the invasive insect. Since 2010, over 400 hemlock stems (20% of sampled stems) have died within this area.   In addition, recent work by Dave, Emery, and researchers from Umass Boston, Indiana University, and Harvard University, have shown that this decline and loss of hemlock has started to have an impact on water- in this case the amount of water has actually increased in local forest streams – a boost of about 15 percent. The dying hemlocks are producing less food, using less water, and therefore evaporating less water back to the atmosphere, leaving more water available in streams.  But like most environmental change, this effect is not likely to stay the same for long.  Hemlock trees, with their evergreen needles, are relatively efficient water users. As hemlocks die, birch trees often grow to replace them. Birches use far more water, especially during the height of the growing season.  Birch seedlings are already becoming established underneath the dying hemlocks, and if these hardwood trees replace the hemlocks, they may lead to drier conditions and less water in the streams, particularly in mid-summer.  Read the full scientific paper in Geophysical Research Letters:

Increased Water Yield Due to hemlock woolly adelgid Article

 Schoolyard Ecology Student Projects

MacDuffie School Students constructed  mini-bioramas of particular biomes studied in Environmental Science class

Biorama by Shane Cauley

Temperate Forest by Taeyoung Ahn

Tropical Rainforest Biorama by Prin Jitroongruangchai

Polar Ice Biorama by Alexa Dermody and
Maddy Levesque

Desert Biome by Wei Zhang

Taiga Biorama by Evan Murdock
and Donovan Richardson

Schoolyard Ecology teacher, Karen Anderson led this project as a way of introducing biomes and ecosystems to students. This seems like a great way that teachers can integrate the experience of viewing the Harvard Forest dioramas into classroom work and learn about a wide variety of biomes including temperate forests that are home to the Eastern Hemlock. 

For this project, students used various animal figures and plant/soil material that was glued/painted in place to resemble the real life biome. Keystone plants and animals were shown/listed for each biome. Students were required to learn the various abiotic factors that were characteristic of their biome. 

Student Projects from Other Schools

 Invasive Species iMovie Trailer by Colrain Central School Students

Colrain Central School Art Teacher, Anne Larsen, took a page from her Schoolyard Ecology Mentor Teacher, Kate Bennett, in leading her students in creating this invasive species movie trailer.  It is worth taking a moment to view both Anne and Kate's students iMovie videos on the links below.

"The Infestation" imovie Trailer by J.R. Briggs Elementary Students

"Invasive Species" Movie Trailer by J.R. Briggs Elementary Students

 iMovie Video Links:  

Student Project- Invasive Species Movie Trailer-Larsen-2017.mp4

Student Project- "The Infestation" iMovie Trailer-Bennett

Invasive Species iMovie Trailer-Bennett

New  Cross-site and Annual Summary Data Online Graphing Tools Available:

The graph above was created using the new online graphing tool that allows one to quickly and easily graph data across sites.  I have chosen to graph the amount of HWA eggs recorded at all sites over the duration of the HWA Schoolyard project.  As you can see, we are not yet showing any overall patterns across our schoolyard study sites. 

Please keep in mind that most schools did not continue this study over more than 2-3 years and thus were not able to capture the long term progression of the adelgid over time. Perhaps more than any other plea we can make to schools is that sticking with the project over time is important. Schools do indeed  have something to offer to the larger effort to see and track the regional changes in our forests over time. Any time students  can contribute new data each year over a series of 5 or more years,  we all benefit.   A number of sites have not ever seen presence of the adelgid and therefore we see most data points at zero along the bottom of the graph.   Zeros are just as important as other data to show us where adelgid has not changed the health of hemlock trees.   

By pulling out only those schools who have participated for four or more years in the Woolly Bully study, we can see the stories as they are playing out over time a bit more clearly.  In particular we can see that the pink line shows the MacDuffie School when it was located in Springfield, Ma. where both HWA and a tornado gave the Hemlocks a one two punch that led to dramatic decline in hemlock populations there. See more on this below.   The green line show the Helen E. James School in Williamsburg, Ma. (near Northampton) where Kindergarten students have been monitoring a single hemlock tree over 6 years to show a dramatic increase  in adelgid populations to the highest levels of any trees in our broader Schoolyard study.  This past year saw adelgid numbers drop.  I can't help but wonder what next year will show. Again the strongest lines are at zero level, showing that most of our sites are still not being impacted by the adelgid, which is somewhat surprising given the amount of mortality Harvard Forest researchers are seeing across New England.

In addition to the Helen E. James School, the J.R. Briggs site shows the expected trend.  

This new graphing tool can also help show summary data for individual sites in order to capture the trend for that site.  We can see here that the J.R. Briggs Schoolyard site along with Helen James school in the earlier graph shows a pattern in the graph above that we might expect to see.  No Adelgid was found between 2005 and 2012.  Suddenly, Adelgid was seen in 2014, and continued to be present in in 2015 and 2016, although not increasing in numbers on these particular study tree branches.  If we had more study sites tracking Adelgid over this many years, our overall data would be much more likely to show similar trends.  

Many sites in northern New England are not yet impacted by the Adelgid. Notice that no eggs have been observed at the Toy Town Elementary School in Winchendon, Ma. on the N.H. border, after 6 years of study.   As we collect more and more data over more years and across more sites, we can better put together a picture of how, when and where the Adelgid is changing the health of one of the most common foundation trees in our forest today.  Will future Schoolyard data show the  adelgid continuing to move north as weather presumably continues to warm?  

Notice that this graph above is showing a decrease in the amount of HWA eggs seen at the MacDuffie School field site in Springfield, MA.  This is the opposite pattern we might expect in New England as a whole, where researchers such as David Orwig have seen an increase in the presence of the Adelgid overtime.  What then can explain this downward trend in number of adelgids at this location?  Note that Springfield MA. was one of the first places where the Adelgid was found in Massachusetts, crossing along the Connecticut River Valley from Connecticut.  In 2009, there were already substantial numbers of Adelgid present there.  As the study trees at this site began to die from infestation, fewer eggs were found.  To make matters worse at this particular location, a tornado hit in 2011, bringing down all the trees at this site.  

The MacDuffie School itself up and moved to another town, Granby, Ma.  where they have not yet found evidence of the Adelgid.  Graphs of the data from their new site are all zeros so far, which is somewhat surprising given its southerly location, but it goes to show that not all hemlocks in southern Mass. have been infested yet.  It remains to be seen how many hemlocks will go unaffected by this invasive insect.  

Stay Tuned for the rest of this story as students from more locations continue to provide us more and pieces of the larger picture over time as they contribute data to the Woolly Bully and the Hemlock Trees Schoolyard Ecology study.  

Learn More about the Woolly Bully Studies at Harvard Forest and Related Schoolyard Sites:

David Orwig Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Research Webpages


HF Schoolyard Ecology Woolly Bully and the Hemlocks Webpages



Hemlock Adelgid Cross-Site Online Graphing Tool