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Located at latitude 61, By completing these activities our second objective, getting the students into the field working as cooperative groups that are energized and engaged into a meaningful science/math project that will increase their interest in a science career, while improving their environmental awareness and test performance will be met.
This project has been funded by a $10,000 grant from Toyota and $10,790 grant from Toshiba and consists of four parts:
{period 5}
Part 1 - Documentation of Budburst:This year budburst occurred on April 25th in Palmer and April 27th at CTHS and Palmer Hay Flats test sites.
All the data were recorded by the students and entered on the www.globe.gov under the phenology section.
Part 2 - Percent of moisture in tree buds: Below is the process and results of this project.Problem: Can moisture in tree buds be used to determine when budburst will occur. Hypothesis: Bud moisture can be used accurately to predict when budburst will occur. Equipment:
Experimental procedure: 1) Gather all the equipment listed above 2) Go out to tree test sites around Mat-Su Career & Technical High school and find two trees with at least ten buds on each tree 3) Using the scissors cut ten buds off of the first tree and store them in the first plastic bag 4) Repeat step 4 for the second tree and store those buds in the second plastic bag 5) Using the Vernier labquest probe, take the temperature of the ground and write it down on the scrap paper 6) Take the GPS reading of the location of both of your trees and write them down on the scratch paper
7) Take the bags inside and keeping them separate remove the buds from the plastic bags 8) Using a milligram electronic scale weigh the buds from the first tree all together 9) Record the data on your data sheet. 10) Take the buds off of your scale and put them into one of the paper bags 11) Label that paper bag with a 1 on it for tree 1. 12) Repeat steps 7-11 with the buds from the second tree labeling this paper bag with a 2, for tree 2 13) Put both paper bags in the drying oven at 140 F
14) After 48 hours remove tree buds from drying oven.
15) Weight the buds from tree one and record it on the data sheet 16) Throw the buds from tree one away 17) Weigh the buds from tree two and record them on the data sheet
18) Determine the amount of moisture in the buds and record data
19) Repeat steps 1-18 two times per week around CTHS until the buds burst
20) Repeat steps 1-19 at Palmer Hay Flats, but collecting buds only once per week Data
(Too large to put on the web)
Results
Conclusion
I believe that the moisture in tree buds is a good indicator of when the the bud will emerge. From the first year's data we can see the all the trees that we tested needed a moisture content of 52% to 56% moisture before the bud would emerge. We did find that environmental temperature, moisture, age of tree and location of tree played a role on when the tree would reach that magic number needed for the bud to emerge. Several issues did arise during this experiment that need to be corrected during next year study, for example several of our test sites were hit hard by moose this winter, virtually removing all the tree buds that where in reach, second students need to collect more data on cottonwood, willow and alder trees so that we can have a larger data base, and the availability of time for the students to issue that they collect data twice a week from each test site.
{measuring tree bud} {leaf measurements} {measuring buds 2} {green up}
Students measured the length (mm) of the first four leaves off of one branch, from a tree within their test sites. Students selected one tree from CTHS test site and two tress from the Palmer Hay Flats test site. Students began taking measurements from the time of bud emergence until the end of school May 19th. Unfortunately, since school ended the third week in May students were able only to document about 60% of the actual growth of the leaves. All the data that was collected was entered on www.globe.gov website under the phenology section.
Part 4 How much sugar is in birch sap?
Students tested 20 trees around CTHS and Palmer Hay Flats. Trees areound CTHS had a sugar content between 1 and 2.5% while the trees at Palmer Hay Flats had a sugar content between 1 to 1.5% {measuring birch sugar}
Check out the Frontiersman article about this project
Special Thanks To
Dr. Elna Sparrow and Martha Kopplin GLOBE Coordinators @ University of Alaska Fairbanks
Matt Weaver, State of Alaska, Forestry Division
Toshiba America Foundation
Toyota TAPESTRY
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