Tree Morphology and Creative Writing

On the 8the day of class we did a reading facilitation about the third chapter of Wessels centered around stumps and basic tree morphology.  We quickly figured out that our group struggles with the exact order and functions of the different layers within the trunk of a tree.

Heartwood: center - "As a tree grows, older xylem cells in the center of the tree become inactive and die, forming heartwood.  The main function of the heartwood is to support the tree."

Xylem (Sapwood): "The xylem, or sapwood, comprises the youngest layers of wood.  Its network of thick-walled cells brings water and nutrients up from the roots through tubes inside of the trunk to the leaves and other parts of the tree."

Cambium: "The very thin layer of growing tissue that produces new cells that become either xylem, phloem or more cambium.  Every growing season, a tree's cambium adds a new layer of xylem to its trunk, producing a visible growth ring in most trees."

Phloem: "The phloem or inner bark, which is found between the cambium and the outer bark, acts a a food supply line by carrying sap (sugar and nutrients dissolved in water) from the leaves to the rest of the tree."

Bark: "The trunk, branches and twigs of the tree are covered with bark. The outer bark, which originates from phloem cells that have worn out, died and been shed outward, acts as a suit of armor against the world by protecting the tree from insects, disease, storms, and extreme temperatures.  In certain species, the outer bark also protects the tree from fire."


After learning all about these parts of the tree, we went inside and split into groups to draw a landscape.

The drawing from my group!

Then the two groups switched landscapes and were given the chance to be creative and to write a story about the landscape - here's what we came up with!

The drawing from the other group - from this we created a story!

Once upon a time...a fire swept through my homeland.  I could hear the crackling and popping from a distance, as great grey clouds came overhead.  As the fire approached the leaves of my friends began to shrivel and crinkle.  The heat crept up my trunk, scorching the ground around me.  The birches fell, animals scattered, and insects poured out from everywhere - the land around me was cleared.  As I recovered more light shone on my branches.  I now have the same marks that my grandmother bears, but she tells me not to mourn those that stood around me as new friends will arrive soon.  

Marko!...............Polo!

Today, our seventh day of class, consisted mostly of the beginning of our group projects.  So, after a morning of writing our pedagogy outlines and a lovely reading facilitation on seeds (and, as I found, things often mistaken for seeds) our group took a little trip out to BHW in search of our black gum tree, which proved to be a wee bit more elusive than you'd think a stationary object could be...

                                               

Our black gum tree and the lovely pile of porcupine scat surrounding the base.

                                             

After a small amount of bushwhacking, we finally learned how to use our gps properly, and in so doing we found our tree!  We set out the main plot that will serve as the outermost boundary (for the most part) of our project as we look at the black gum itself and the surrounding forest community.  We quickly came to realize that we might have undertaken a little bit more work than what we initially intended, as in the hour that we spent at our site we found many different features and characteristics to be noted! 

Witches'-broom!

"Witches'-broom: symptom of plant disease that occurs as an abnormal brushlike cluster of dwarfed, weak shoots arising at or near the same point; twigs and branches of woody plants may die back. There are numerous causes, including rust (Gymnosporangium and Pucciniastrum); Apiosporina, Exobasidium, and Taphrina fungi; mites; insects; viruses; mycroplasmas; bacteria; and mistletoes. Susceptible plants include alder, alfalfa, Amelanchier, birch, California buckeye, Chamaecyparis, cherry, cherry laurel, elm, fir, hackberry, Holodiscus (ocean spray), honey locust, juniper and red-cedar, manzanita, mountain heath, mulberry, oak, potato, rhododendron, rose, sophora, spruce, and strawberry."

Witches'-broom!

We also found a little newt friend just scampering around the edge of our plot!  (For information on this little buddy and his friends - http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Wildlife/Nongame/salamanders/east-redspot_newt.htm)

An Eastern/Red-spotted Newt that we found in our plot!

Interpretation of Words and Education

The sixth day of class started with a reading facilitation that centered around the use of Venn diagrams, poetry, and painting to further our ideas of education within the Western world, the Indigenous education system, and rituals.  Our discussion really moved me to think about the way we define and use rituals and routines in our daily lives and even in our educational system here in the western world. 
The online Merriam-Websters dictionary defines the word ritual (as a noun) as 1. the established form for a ceremony; specifically: the order of words prescribed for a religious ceremony, 2. a: ritual observance, specifically: a system of rites, b: a ceremonial act or action, c: an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner. 
The online Merriam-Websters dictionary defines the word routine (as a noun) as 1. a: a regular course of procedure, b: habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure, 2: a reiterated speech or formula, 3. a worked-out part (as of an entertainment or sports contest) that may be often repeated.
I thought it was really interesting to compare these two words and to think about the roles that they play in our society today.  I find that the word ritual, to me at least, means something that I do on a regular basis that I do for myself personally that has some sort of spiritual meaning in my life - for example, I would define a ritual as wearing my necklace and ring every day, and hardly ever taking them off or going anywhere without them.  Whereas, I would personally define a routine as the schedule that I carry out, or the order in which I do things - for example, getting up in the morning, and showering and getting dressed before brushing my teeth, and then going to school - the order is the routine, the constant. 
Dissecting these two words and then connecting them to their roles in education made me realize how many rituals we have lost within our western educational system, while the main thought has become routine.  The schedule within the classroom, or school system has become more focused on the idea of having a set schedule, a set regimen which the students must follow, during which the students must learn a set amount of information so that they can then get good grades on the standardized tests scheduled for them throughout the year.  If we get back to our roots, back to the ideals of rituals and the thought of community and place-based education, I think we'll get back to the idea of connecting to our community and then even the natural area that surrounds that community.

We painted a few pictures to depict what we saw when we closed our eyes and listened to this poem.

Fire

By Joy Harjo

a woman can't survive

by her own breath

alone

she must know

the voices of mountains

she must recognize

the foreverness of blue sky

she must flow

with the elusive

bodies

of night wind women

who will take her into

her own self

look at me

i am not a separate woman

i am a continuance

of blue sky

of the sandia mountains

a night wind woman

who burns

with every breath

she takes

Natives, Nonnatives, and Invasives!

This morning, which marked our second week and fifth day of class, we spent a few hours with Tom Lee investigating nonnative and invasive species in College Woods.  We learned that the real concern with invasive species are those that invade and then change the natural community.  I was surprised to find that of the over 2,500 species of vascular vegetation found within New Hampshire, about 500 of these are classified as nonnative species, and of those 500 species, only about 50 are classified as invasive species. 

Our main question of the morning was: Why are invasive plants so successful here?
 As we examined the reasons for why we would find, for example, glossy buckthorn on one side of a path but not the other, we found that a whole host of factors - soil composition, light availability, seed dispersal, and many others, can be the deciding factor in where a nonnative plant takes root.  We also discussed a few hypotheses that explain why a nonnative plant would be more successful here in the new world, than they were/are in the old world: the two main hypotheses being the enemy-release hypothesis and the disturbance hypothesis.  I learned that the enemy-release hypothesis "which states that plant species, on introduction to an exotic region, experience a decrease in regulation by herbivores and other natural enemies, resulting in a rapid increase in distribution and abundance" - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534702024990.  In this way, invasives are twice as likely to get a disease at home - in their native ecosystem - than in a new ecosystem.  The disturbance hypothesis explains the vigor of nonnative, invasive species as the result of our own human messes - whenever we create a disturbance in an area, we have opened it up for nonnative species to take hold and basically take over if they have the capability. 
Whatever the reason, the underlying problem with invasive species is how they change, and really mess up the progression of natural succession in the area.  And for many, the financial cost to get rid of invasive species is too great to bear any really onslaught against these species.  So what will New England forests look like in the future if we are unable to find a cost-effective way to uproot these invasives? Will future generations eventually call some of these invasive species native?

Warren Farm

Our fourth day of classes began with a fantastic trip to Warren Farm, where we learned all about the history of the farm and the surrounding area - including the Barrington headwaters property.  It was really interesting to talk to Randy Warren and to learn about his involvement with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under the US Department of Agriculture.  Throughout my undergrad career as a wildlife ecology/management student, it was made abundantly clear that the management of the land was the primary consideration when looking at the abundance, or lack thereof, a certain species of wildlife may show in an area.  And so the creation and maintenance of habitat became the main concern of management plans under projects like those under the ESA. 
So it was really interesting to gain the perspective of a farmer who now has the understanding that his land can support a vast diversity of wildlife if it is properly managed for those species. 

I really became interested in the idea of environmental education as it became clear to me that individuals, outside of the environmental/science-based ideals that I have become so accustomed to working with, have really no base of knowledge on which to lean when they are faced with a public vote or decision.  I realized that the only way that we as wildlife ecologists could hope to work with the public (asking for their help in voting, in habitat projects, in proper land-use, in the support of any of our projects, etc,) is if they really understood what we were working with and how important their help and understanding in the processes really was. For example, how can we expect the public to make an educated decision when deciding where to build a new building or to place a new set of power lines, if they have no idea what the consequences would be for wildlife, important habitats, drainage, etc.? 

As I came to this realization, the importance of education really hit me.  Today, people like Randy Warren who have learned to listen and trust the ideas of people like Matt Tarr and the Cooperative Extension Program, are such a huge asset to the environmental community, but we cannot expect everyone to want to search for help from an outside source.  We, as educators must be the ones to go to these people, give them the information they need to make decisions (not make the decisions for them), and then help them to carry out their plans - hoping that we do a proper job in handing our knowledge over so that a well-rounded decision and plan is made and implemented, and that this plan benefits the environment and the wildlife community at large.

One tree

Today, the third day of our adventures, started with a morning filled with animal scat, plant identification, hacking through the woods, and tons of inquisitiveness. 

We found a black gum tree surrounded at its base by a midden, at least two feet deep, made up of generations of porcupine scat!

My favorite part of the morning, however, came later when we happened across a large white pine with a whole host of  connections to the ecosystem around it.  I found this particular tree/spot really interesting as it gave us the chance to really see how different pieces of the natural world not only coexist, but even depend upon one another in order to survive.  This particular white pine hosted a whole army of carpenter ants, which then in turn provided food for the pileated woodpecker.  Between the woodpecker and the ants, different cavities within the tree were created, lending a living space to a flying squirrel.  The flying squirrel, (perhaps multiple squirrels and/or generations) which chose to dwell in this particular tree, then provided an ample amount of scat for the scarab beetle to use to form protective homes for their larvae to then later turn into beetles and hatch from these little scat cocoons! 

I loved being able to see all of these connections between so many different parts of the ecosystem - it really made me think about how important each an every piece of this little puzzle depended on the other pieces.  I also really enjoyed the idea that one single tree could play host to so many different species in so many different ways.  It also tied in with our facilitation today in thinking about how a small circle on the ground can be considered an ecosystem just as a thousand acres is one as well.  One little tree can do so much!

The First Blog Post!

Well, here it is, grad school.  After the first day of the summer institute for the environmental education program, I must admit I wasn't sure what I had gotten myself into! Now here, at the conclusion of the second day, after two days in the woods studying trees, plants, learning techniques, measurement techniques, (the list goes on and on) I'm feeling like we're all here in the right place.  The small group of seven of us, while jumping through the hoops of moving/traveling to NH, learning the campus, dealing with packed lunches and leaving kids at home, has passed the first two (intense) days with flying colors (if I can say so myself!). 
I'm finding it incredibly interesting how in this class, and probably in the classes that lie before me in this program, I will not only be learning new subjects, but also will be learning how to look at things that I have already learned from the perspective of a teacher, student, population, etc. For example, on the first day we took a walk through College Woods and set out two plots of forest for our group to measure and assess.  Since my undergraduate education here at UNH has already led me through exercises relatively close to this activity, I prepared myself to take somewhat of a backseat throughout the afternoon.  However, I was happily mistaken!  As we took measurements and made observations, my outlook on the whole activity changed right before my eyes.  It was really interesting to listen to my new colleagues and to think and look at the forest around me the way that they do.  I'm really excited for the weeks to come, as I'm sure I will be able to learn an incredible amount from these new classmates and through this program itself.
One thing I didn't really expect to learn from this particular class was different ways to teach/explain a certain idea or method to the learner.  Since I have no previous experience with teaching others (aside from being an assistant dance teacher for years and various classroom activities as an undergrad) the idea of looking at things that I've already learned, and even new subjects that I have yet to learn, in this way (from the perspective of the new student) is a completely new experience to me and something that I really look forward to learning more about.