Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Nagoonberry Loop Field Trip (March 29)


The 3rd-5th grade class went to the Nagoonberry  Loop Trail on March 29th. It was windy and cloudy and kind of warm. It was very hard to get a soil sample because of all the roots.  Our soil samples were really interesting because you could really see the layers clearly. There was a little sand and a lot of clay. Desire noticed that at the top of the soil sample it was really soft and wet.  The soil would feel harder and harder as you went down the sample with your finger.  One group noticed that the soil sample had some reddish-brown soil and grey clay in it. 

The trees we recorded in the area were willow, Sitka spruce, jack pine, and cottonwood. We found two really big Sitka spruce trees.  One had a circumference of 251cm and we estimated it to be 55 feet tall. (It had a hunting stand in it.)  Another Sitka spruce had a circumference of 269cm.   

We noticed a lot of moose scat on the ground.  We also saw Carolyn hiking on the trail.

We were quiet for a minute and we heard a lot of geese.  If we keep doing a quiet minute we predict we will hear different kinds of birds migrating through Gustavus. 

When we were nature journaling, Sammy wrote some poetry about her observations:

The blue sky leaves as the dark clouds take over.

The wind is blowing, the trees are shaking, and everything is quiet.

3 comments:

  1. So... those big spruces - how old do you think they are? How could you learn their age? If spruces can live several hundred years (they can), then why do you think these are much younger?

    I REALLY like your "quiet minutes"! I *JUST* started hearing varied thrushes (the telephone bird) here in Gustavus a couple days ago, about the time the first robins showed up. Spring is springing!

    Lewis

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  2. Everybody did really good on the field trip. It was really fun.


    From Sammy

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  3. Lewis,
    We think that the trees might be 250 years old at the most. To figure the exact age we could core the trees and count the rings. Greg showed us how to do that on one of our field trips. These trees are not that old because the glacier that was here approximately 250 years ago created a huge outwash and not much grew.

    Thanks for the comment. Yay, spring!!!!!

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