Arbor Day 2020- Plant trees and learn about the wonders they produce
The White House planted a Maple Tree as support for a delayed initiative to plant a trillion trees. Regardless of the delay all trees will need community support in planting, tending, and caring for these new future arrivals. Right now whether in school or on the go you can take part in the GLOBE Trees Campaign from your smart phone using the free app. You can be ready to measure your tree and its growth pattern. And when planted the sizable restocking of the national or regional tree stock will make a difference for birds, beasts and humans, even impacting the weather and the watershed in storms.
Last week GLOBE educators received training which had a Google earth map of an urban infrastructure that was virtually treeless- what a difference a canopy, fruit, shade, and benches could make. Healthy older trees have larger trucks, heights and reach. They can be climbed or give fruit, give shelter, or shade. Older trees might die from drought or from infestation. Healthy trees can shelter other species or become home for nesting birds.
You can study trees from your home on Earth Observer app. Whether a porch, a perch or a window or door, measuring the height, and making projections, can lead to success in math, escaping stay at home boredom, a future career, or a living bio-system to study, understand, write about, appreciate, and dream forward with.
Dreaming forward with trees is a pastime well documented by the Poetry Foundation (its Poetry month), by farmers, by mapmakers, by artists. Seeing nature can be inspiring on line from NASA at Home or from Landsat 8 satellites or the Gedi. Whatever the source of inspiration, the President planting to the pending bill, to the support of citizen science in the backyard with GLOBE, Audubon, Cornell Bird Lab, I Nature, museums, science journaling, drawing and watercolors, making prints…from Hubble to a telescope, from the Tree cover app to online zoom instruction for you or your teacher; Education is becoming more personal at the same time it is being delivered in Modoc's, chat groups, and on video conferencing or by online tutoring.
Consider this an opportunity for fun, for discovery, for learning and to put in your two cents, find a voice or a future of graduation, new job opportunities and comprehending the world around us, under us, above us, and the region and Topography modeling that has become the GLOBE Virtual Science Symposium for submitting science posters or Planetary Geography and if you like sharing your measurements…the world is your oyster or with Ireland planning on replanting its forests…maybe a red squirrel shout out is a better turn of phrase. Check out Ruth Elliott's master book and class book, "See what you are looking at" page 15 to connect the Arts with STEM and the tree campaign with shapes, height, hand eye coordination, and a new kind of diary that can bear fruit like Darwin's did. And who ever heard of a concept for artists or scientists for drawing together making observations bigger that GLOBE cohorts in 122 countries joining you?
""Today, April 24, 2020, is Arbor Day. Arbor Day, much like Earth Day, is a holiday that celebrates nature. Its purpose is to encourage people to plant trees. Did you know that there are an estimated 3,000,000,000,000 trees on Earth? That is a mind-boggling number, isn't it?" Campbell said in the blog."
"Trees are a vital component of our Earth system. As trees grow, they help reduce climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the air, storing carbon in the trees and soil, and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere."
Let's go for 5 Trillion….better more and now than never.
Trees excite our imaginations- Poetry Month 2020:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12744/trees
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51731/the-trees-are-down
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45952/a-poison-tree
https://treesgroup.org/tree-poems/
STEM Analysis and Forestry- Carbon Sequestration Modelling:
http://www.ncasi2.org/COLE/
https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/carbon/tools/#cole
https://www.fs.fed.us/ecosystemservices/pdf/estimates-forest-types.pdf
https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/carbon/tools/#cole
Earth Observer and Trees Across the GLOBE:
https://www.globe.gov/web/trees-around-the-globe/overview
Trees Across the GLOBE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwULBr5QpmM&feature=youtu.be
https://www.globe.gov/news-events/globe-news/newsdetail/globe/join-the-05-may-trees-around-the-globe-campaign-webinar-new-jersey-pinelands-the-nation-s-first-national-preservation-area-
1 Trillion Trees starting with one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple
Tapping Trees:
https://wildfoodism.com/2014/02/04/22-trees-that-can-be-tapped-for-sap-and-syrup/