Amazing Trees! The West

Back in October, 2009, I introduced the basics about studying trees. The next few entries will highlight some of our countries most amazing trees.

1. Bristlecone Pine
There are three types of Bristlecone pines, named after the spiny bristles on the trees cones. They live in the mountains of the southwestern United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Pinus longaeva, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, is thought to be the longest living single organism in the world, up to 5,000 years old! Methuselah, the oldest known bristlecone pine, is over 4,800 years old. Its location in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in California is kept secret to protect it from vandalism. The wood of the Bristlecone Pine tree is so durable, that one dead bristlecone that still stands, was alive over 10, 000 years ago!

2. Giant Sequoia and Coastal Redwood
Sequoia and Redwoods are evergreen trees that are thought to be the largest trees on earth. They are native to northern California.
At any given time, a large tree may be expected to have approximately 11,000 cones.
General Sherman is the name of a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) with a height of 275 feet (83.8 metres), and thought to be the largest tree, by volume of wood, in the US. The tree is located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in California. The tree is believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.
The current tallest tree is a Coastal Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) named Hyperion, measuring at 115.61 m (379.3 feet). The tree was discovered in Redwood National Park during Summer 2006 by Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor and has been measured as the world's tallest living organism.

Children are fascinated by trees, and these trees are most fascinating! There are many resources about these amazing trees (See National and State Park links above):

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_trees

2. A Day in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, Mark A. Schlenz. 2008. Companion Press.

3. Giant Sequoia Trees (Early Bird Nature Books), Ginger Wadsworth and Frank Staub. 1995. Lerner Publications.

Sea Stars

Commonly called 'starfish', sea stars are not fish, but rather invertebrates belonging to a group of animals called echinoderms, which means "spiny skin." They are related to brittle stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and sand dollars. Sea stars come in many colors and sizes, living in all the world's oceans, over 2000 species in all. If you live near a place where sea stars live near the shore, it's relatively easy to set up a salt water tank in your classroom to watch them for a few days.

Sea Star facts:

• Sea stars have no brains and no blood. Their nervous system is spread through their arms and their “blood” is actually filtered sea water.


• The five-arm varieties are the most common, hence their name, but species with 10, 20, and even 40 arms exist.


• Sea stars use suction in the tube feet for movement and feeding. They wrap their bodies around quahogs and other bivalves, using the suction from their tube feet to pull shells apart.


• When the prey is opened, the sea star pushes its stomach out of its body and into the bivalve, secreting enzymes that digest the prey's soft body tissues. The liquefied bivalve is then absorbed into the stomach.


• When a sea star loses an arm, it can grow back.

Sea Star Resources:

1. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/starfish.html National Geographic site about starfish, with photographs, facts, and video-clips.


2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL2Qh4yIzzc You Tube video of a sea star moving on a glass aquarium wall.


3. http://library.thinkquest.org/J001418/star.html Excellent Sea Star fact site.


4. Starfish (Let's-Read-and-Find... Science) by Edith Thacher Hurd and Robin Brickman, Collins; Revised edition (May 3, 2000) .

Seahorses

Children are facinated by seahorses. Seahorses are a genus of fish with some very unique characteristics. Unlike most other fish, they are monogamous and mate for life. Rarer still, they are among the only animal species on Earth in which the male bears the unborn young.

Here are some more interesting seahorse facts:

• They range in size from 0.6 to 14 inches long.


• There are 35 species of seahorses world-wide, and they live in every ocean excpet the polar.


• Seahorses have no teeth and no stomach. Food passes through their digestive systems so quickly, they must eat almost constantly to stay alive.


• The seahorse has a long snout for sucking in food and a long tail which the seahorse uses both for moving through the water and also for curling around things in order to anchor itself down.

There are many seahorse resources for your classroom. Please note, it is very difficult to keep live seahorses, so make sure you know exactly what you are doing before you try it in your classrroom.

http://a-z-animals.com/animals/seahorse/ Great information page about seahorses with good photographs.

http://a-z-animals.com/animals/sea-dragon/ Sea Dragons are closely related to seahorses. There are only 2 species, both live off Australia.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/sea-horse/ National Geographic seahorse page for children.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/efc_seahorse/seahorse_multimedia.aspx Seahorse video clips, photographs, and information.

Seahorses: Mysteries of the Oceans by Catherine Wallis, 2005

Seahorses by Twig C. George, 2003

Seahorses by Sylvia M. James, 2002

Hermit Crabs

Young children are facinated by hermit crabs. Here are some interesting hermit crab facts:

• Hermit Crabs are not 'true' crabs. They are decapod (10 legged) crustaceans, in the same taxonomic class as crabs, lobsters, and shrimp.


• There are approximately 500 known species of Hermit Crabs. Most are aquatic, but a few, 15 species, are terrestrial and often seen as pets in ECE classrooms. It is relatively easy to keep small aquatic hermit crabs in a cold, salt water classroom aquarium.


• Hermit Crabs have a soft abdomen, so they use the discarded shells of snails for protection. They must find a bigger shell when they out grow the one they are in.


• Hermit crab species range in size, from a species with a carapace only a few millimeters long to Coenobita brevimanus which can approach the size of a coconut!

There are many, many resources for teachers about hermit crabs:

1. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/invertebrates/crustacean/Hermitcrab.shtml Enchanted Learning page about Hermit Crabs, including an excellent diagram of all the parts.


2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jZe_VGLRYI A video of a hermit crab changing shells.


3. Pet Hermit Crab (First Step Nonfiction) by Robin Nelson
4. Hermit Crab's Home: Safe in a Shell, by Janet Halfmann
5. Does Anyone Know Where a Hermit Crab Goes? by Michael Glaser

Let it Snow!

It's the time of year when we think of....snow! I grew up in Buffalo, New York, so I have a lot of first-hand experience with snow. There are few natural things that children enjoy more than playing in snow, so why not add a little science to the mix?

Snow is a type of precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds.The shape of the snowflake is determined broadly by the temperature and humidity at which it is formed. Snow forms in a hexagonal (six-sided) form due to the way that water freezes.

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley was the first known photographer of snowflakes. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they melted. Common knowledge is that no two snowflakes are alike, but they can be very similar when conditions are the same.

You can study snow with children by observing it in and out of the classroom, using all the senses (Note: I do not recommend having children eat real snow). Examine it with a magnifier, feel it with your fingers, listen to it crunch, watch it melt, weigh it, measure it, roll it with a rolling pin, fill up a cup with it, make tracks in it.

Snow Resources:

• The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter's Wonder, Mark Cassino. Chronicle Books, 2009.
• Snow Is Falling (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 1), Franklyn M. Branley (Author), Holly Keller (Illustrator). Collins, 2000.
• I Am Snow (Hello Reader, Science), Jean Marzollo (Author), Judith Moffatt (Illustrator). Cartwheel, 2000.
• Search on 'snowflakes' in Google Images for hundreds of photographs.

Colors in Nature

Here is a sneak preview of my keynote speech, The Art of Nature Science for the 3rd Annual 'Green' conference on Saturday, January 9, 2010, here at Cape Cod Community College:

Nature is the original artist! Did you know that the color wheel, used in a variety of activities from painting to gardening, actually reflects the amazing ways that nature combines color to great effect. Complementary colors are colors opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, and purple and yellow. Analogous colors are colors next to each other on the color wheel, such as red, orange, and yellow, or green, blue, and violet. Look around you and you will start to notice all of the natural complementary and analogous colors everywhere. You can do nature color studies with children, provide nature pallets for painting, drawing, etc. The colors of nature offer another 'language' for children to use when creating and representing their world.

Cones in Nature

I am still fascinated by the art of Andy Goldsworthy and it's relationship to nature and art (See March 12, 2009 entry about spirals). Just as children are intrigued by spirals, they also like cones. Andy Goldsworthy has made cones of various materials all over the world. Did you know that there are all kinds of cones throughout the natural world? There are dozens of varieties of pine cones, of course, but also cone flowers, pineapples, and artichokes, to name a few. Cones are forms by scales or petals that are arranged in a spiral formation known as a Fibonacci number sequence. You can study all kinds of cones with young children by making a collection and setting it out on the science table. Have a children's field guide to trees, as well as photographs or real examples of other types of cones mentioned above. How are the cones the same? How are they different? What are they made of? What is inside of them? Do any animals eat them? Why are some cones long and thin, and others short and fat?

Resources about Pine Cones

From Pine Cone to Pine Tree (Scholastic News Nonfiction Readers: How Things Grow), by Ellen Weiss, 2007. Children's Press. This is a great book about pine cones , and one of an interesting series for children.

Pine Trees (Rookie Read-About Science) by Allan Fowler, 2002, Children's Press. This book includes different types of pine trees as well as the parts of the trees, including the cones.

There are thousands of photographs of pine cones and other types of cones in nature in Google Images. Children can paint cones, paint on cones, and create cones with clay. Many nature books for children include ideas for pine cone activities.