Why Trees Matter to the Lorax—and You!

We know a thing or two about trees here at OARDC's Wooster campus.

Source: movies.nytimes.com via Melissa on Pinterest

And like the Lorax, our researchers are well-versed in speaking for the trees. Our version of the Lorax goes by the name of Ken Cochran, and he's the curator for our 88-acre Secrest Arboretum.

Source: thesocialsilo.com via Oardc on Pinterest

The arboretum has been an integral part of our campus and community for over 100 years, but it's landscape was forever changed when it was hit head-on by a devastating tornado in September 2010 that took out over 1,200 of the arboretum's trees. Since that time, Ken has worked with his plants and countless volunteers to replan and replant Secrest Arboretum. And our researchers are able to assess the impact this loss will have on the arboretum's environment. A portion of the damaged area of the arboretum is even being left intact to regenerate naturally.

But this loss has reiterated to our campus and community that yes, trees do matter! Here's what Ken has to say about it on the Secrest website:

Trees have a powerful impact on outdoor space and in human well-being. Trees draw upon our senses as a natural resource, while scenic beauty and trees add value to our landscapes through the environmental services they provide. Urban parks and greenways, academic, business and industrial campuses and residential gardens are corridors linking up to the natural world and enhancing the whole ecosystem. Why do trees matter in your life? 

The Why Trees Matter Program is one of Ohio State University Extension’s six Signature Programs. It is an interdisciplinary program of the University that focuses on the economic, environmental and social benefits of trees and community forests. Using U.S. Forest Service models, it quantifies the sustainable environmental services trees provide, such as storm-water remediation, air quality benefits, energy savings, and carbon sequestration. For example, the annual value of a 12 inch diameter silver linden is $98. Why Trees Matter includes applied research plots at over 140 sites throughout Ohio communities (Ohio Street Tree Evaluation Program), tree research evaluation and extension (TREE) plots at OARDC’s Secrest Arboretum, OSUE Master Gardener 'Tree Specialist' volunteers in Ohio counties, and a diverse array of community development programs around the state. Signature Tree Program… is one of the components of the Why Trees Matter Program in cooperation with the Secrest Arboretum of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Initiated on March 11-12, 2009 in Wooster, Ohio, by OSU President E. Gordon Gee, this program is intended to increase awareness of the importance of trees for sustainable communities and to raise money for tree research at The Ohio State University. Features of the Signature Tree Program include the following: 

• Three tree selections offered for sale each year as Signature Trees. For 2009-2010, these are Silver Linden, Scarlet Buckeye, and Pagoda Dogwood. Cost is $30.00 ea.


• Each tree sold in 2009-2010 will include President E. Gordon Gee’s signature, along with a statement of “why trees matter” to President Gee.


• Each tree sale will also include an explanation of the environmental services trees provide, based on the science-based i-Tree model developed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Ohio-based Davey Tree Company, the largest tree care company in the world. Each tree will also have a tree care tag with proper planting and care information.


• Signature Trees will be available for sale at selected tree planting programs and Secrest Arboretum and other OSU horticulture programs throughout the year, as well as, Ohio counties, OSUE 4-H camps, and other events. Proceeds will be placed in an OSU Development Account for tree research at OSU.

Please support of tree research at The Ohio State University, through the purchase of Signature Trees. Let Signature Trees be a symbol of 'Why Trees Matter' in your life. Contact Ken Cochran at cochran.7@osu.edu or Joe Cochran at cochran.58@osu.edu or call: (330) 464-2148.

Discover Secrest Arboretum

Are you and yours excited about the upcoming Lorax movie based on Dr. Suess's book? My household is for sure.

Source: cinemark.com via Jane on Pinterest

One of the key themes from the movie is protecting and enjoying the trees and forests we may often take for granted. In fact, the U.S. Forest Service has even launched a new public service announcement campaign with the Lorax:

Have YOU spent time enjoying and discovering the wonderful world of trees lately? If not, be sure to plan a visit to OARDC's own Secrest Arboretum. The 88-acre arboretum is perfect to explore on your own as a family. Much of the arboretum is even handicap accessible with paved paths through our holly plantation, unique plant collection, million flower walkway, prairie plantings, butterfly garden, water garden and so much more. There's even a Discovery Pavilion to learn about the biological calendar that affects us all, a forest plantation, deciduous tree planting, share tree planting and much much more.

Or, you can join in one of our upcoming special events like our Dormant Pruning Workshop, Guided Bird Walk, Scarlet Gray and Green Fair or even a Guided Spring Walk. Details for these events as well as directions to the arboretum can be found at the Secrest Arboretum website. 

Be sure to come back next week for more information on how you can use the Lorax book and movie as a teaching tool.

Back to School with Twig Walkingstick: The Pencil Tree

Twig lives in and around the Wooster campus of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, where he enjoys the prairie plant in Secrest Arboretum. His alter ego is Kurt Knebusch, one of our super-talented writers and editors on campus. Each month, look for Twig to answer a reader questions and some additional interesting facts below. After Twig's post, we will be providing some ideas and suggestions on how to incorporate the info in Twig's column into fun science learning for your students and children.

Q: Dear Twig, What kinds of wood do they make wood pencils out of?


A. My feathered friend Weezerbird told me something at lunch last week. (He had grubs. I had leaves.)  


He said, “That place you work at (Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, part of Ohio State University) has the biggest incense cedar tree in Ohio.”


I said, “What’s an incense cedar tree?”


He said, “The tree they make pencils out of.”


And he was right. I checked. (He actually usually is.) (Don’t tell him I said that.) 


American pencil companies make their pencils out of wood from California incense cedar trees. Reasons: The wood is soft. Soft for a wood, that is. So pencil-makers can shape it into pencil shapes easily. It sharpens easily, too. It doesn’t make splinters. And also it smells good.


Incense cedars are coniferous evergreens. As, for example, pines are. Incense cedars grow in the wild out West. But people plant them in other places, too.


Writefully,
Twig


P.S. Find Ohio’s No. 1 incense cedar in Ohio State’s Secrest Arboretum!


Notes:
The California incense cedar is a specific species: Calocedrus decurrens. There also are species that have the common names Taiwan incense cedar and China incense cedar.


One hundred or so years ago, U.S. pencil-makers made pencils out of eastern red cedar trees. But those got used up and scarce. So the switch was made to California incense cedar trees, which were and are easy to come by out West, including now in managed plantings. In other parts of the world, people make pencils out of eastern red cedar relatives.


Secrest Arboretum is part of Ohio State’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.


Follow these links to learn more about Ohio’s biggest trees and pencil-making details.


Using this information for education:
Students (and especially their parents) spend a lot of time getting ready to go back to school, and one of those traditions is back to school shopping. But have you ever considered talking about those purchases and supplies your students will be using throughout the year as an educational topic and not just a tool?


In our last post we talked about the importance of teaching economics. This is another great (and fun) example of a product to talk about. This example also shows how production has changed over the years based upon factors like the supply (and demand) of specific varieties of trees!


Want to know more about these pencil trees? Here are some follow up questions Twig answered when this column first appeared in September 2008:


Q. Dear Twig: I know something else they make pencils out of. It isn’t plastic, either. It’s paper!




A. Excellent! You’re right. There are companies that make pencils out of recycled paper. (The part of the pencil you hold, that is. Not the graphite.)  Some of that paper is recycled newsprint — newspaper paper. Some of that paper is recycled money — worn-out bills (dollar bills, etc.) that the government took out of circulation (collected to keep people from using anymore) and shredded. There are pencils made out of sawdust, scrap cardboard and blue-jean scraps, too.


Whatever the case (The pencil case! Ba ha ha ha ha ha heeeeeeee!), a strong glue holds it all together so it looks and is shaped like a normal wood pencil. Making new pencils from thrown-away stuff puts trash to good use and saves trees.


Did you know you can make pencils out of twigs? Twigs from trees, that is, not me. You cut them, drill them, and fill them with graphite. I’d find that a bit uncomfortable.


Disjointedly,
Twig


P.S. Q. Why did the elephant use a recycled-paper pencil? A. His pen broke. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeee!


Notes:
Makers of really nice twig pencils include John Wyant of Minnesota,  (crayons, too!)and Roger Plant of England.

Q. Dear Twig: So what are those recycled pencils like?



A. Pretty much like regular pencils. You hold them the same. You write with them the same. I have one here in my hands. It’s made out of recycled newsprint. It’s painted green. The paint feels smooth. The graphite, the “lead,” is normal gray.


I sniff the pencil. It doesn’t smell like a regular pencil (which owes its scent to incense cedar wood.) I smell a tiny paint smell, though. But you have to have the pencil up your nose, or at least right under it, to detect it.


I taste it. Myem, myem. I doesn’t seem to have any taste. (Spit.)


I sharpen it. I stick it into an electric sharpener. Rrr. The graphite comes out nice and pointy. The sharpened-down paper around it looks white.


I sharpen another one (same kind). The sharpened-down paper on this one looks white. But also: The white has these wavy red, blue and black lines in it. Neat.


That’s all I have to say about pencils.


Pointy-headedly,
Twig


P.S. Hardened glue holds them together, so recycled pencils can be harder to sharpen.


Notes:
Recycled pencils come painted in other colors besides green, of course. And the graphite/lead in them comes in other colors besides gray.


People have different opinions about the environmental benefits, or not, of recycled-material pencils, no matter if the material is newsprint, scrap wood, old money or old blue jeans. Making recycled pencils takes energy, of course — for grinding, shredding, forming them, etc. — plus non-”green” stuff like paint and glue. So there’s that.


Pencils made out of trees, meanwhile, need cutting, shaping and so on. They also, ideally, should be sustainably managed. That means making sure that both the supply of trees and the health of the forest both stay good pretty much forever.

It's a pollination jubilation!

Summer is here. The sun is shining and the bees are buzzing. But bees aren't the only pollinators hard at work! Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the anther (the male parts of the flower) to the stigma (the female parts of the flower). After pollination, the fertilized flower egg will become a seed and the ovary will form into a fruit.

Now, since flowers are stationary, they need help transferring their pollen. Some flowers attract insects and birds to help with the job. As I was taking a group on a tour of Secrest Arboretum this Monday, we saw one plant that literally had well over a dozen different species of insects hard at the work of pollination. When the insects of birds visit the flower,, they can accidentally rub against the pollen (the yellow stuff in the picture above) and carry it with them to another flower. In the process, they transfer pollen from an anther to a stigma, which pollinates the flower and enables from fruit to grow.

So how do plant attract pollinators? Several ways:

• Displaying brightly colored petals
• Mimicking smells
• Providing nectar (one sweet food source!)
• Mimicking shapes of other objects
• Using designs or tracks to direct pollinators

Just a note: not all plants are pollinated by animals. Some are pollinated by wind or water and still others are self-pollinated.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a perfect time of year to see pollinators hard at work. Take a hike outdoors and challenge the kids to find a flower, describe the parts they can see, and hypothesize about how they think the plant is pollinated. It's also fun to look for pollinators at work....just be sure to look and not touch!

Growing Together is a great resource available from Ohio State University Extension that has a lot of great outdoor-themed lesson plans. Inside, you'll also find great worksheets and detailed pictures of the parts of the flower and tons of other cool resources. Contact your local Extension office to ask about ordering a copy. The following activity is adapted from this book.

Materials needed:

• Cardstock or construction paper
• Scissors
• Q-Tips or other cotton swabs
• Colored chalk or colored sugar
• Glue dots
• Large marshmallows

Directions:

1. Have students cut out or color a cardstock or construction paper flower about the size of a hand (this is a top-down view of a flower - so it will look kind of like a symmetrical cloud).
2. Attach marshmallow to center of the flower with a glue dot.
3. Cut Q-tips in half. Dip cotton-covered end in crushed colored chalk (I use colored sugar like for decorating cookies so I don't have the work of crushing the chalk). Insert other end of Q-Tip into marshmallow, like spokes on a wheel. 5-6 "spokes" per flower is good. I suggest making a minimum of 2 flowers and using only one color of sugar or chalk per flower.
4. Gently moisten the top of the marshmallow (to make it a little "sticky")
5. Have students pretend a new Q-Tip is an insect collecting pollen an nectar. As it flies around from one flower to the next, see how is spreads the sugar from the outer anthers (Q-Tips) to the inner stigma (marshmallow). Remember, the pollinator doesn't go directly from anther to anther, it bumps around and explores in teh flower to fins what it is looking for.
6. Let them each take turns pollinating each other's flowers.

Other cool facts about pollinator preferences:

• Hummingbirds prefer deep, tube-shaped flowers, especially reds or deep oranges.
• Bats and some moths prefer large, night-blooming flowers, often rotten smelling, and prefer white.
• Bees prefer colorful, scented flowers with UV guides; they see all colors except red and especially prefer blue, purple and white.
• Butterflies prefer deep, tube-shaped flowers or large flowers where they can rest. They prefer red, purple, orange and white.

Other great pollinator resources:

• The Clover & the Bee by Ann Dowden
• Growing Through Changes: Life Cycle of Plants by Alan Rossman
• Partners in Pollination
• Pollinator Partnership (National Pollinator's Week) - 4th - 6th grade curriculum
• 
  

Take a hike!

Summer is a great time to get out and about and enjoy nature with children...they see so many wonders we as adults often miss! So cast your cares to the wind and make time to enjoy the outdoors...and while you're at it, make it a fun time to learn, too!

Scavenger hunts outdoors are great fun. Plus, they enhance kids' abilities to correctly use and identify directional words like near, far, above, below, left, right, etc., as they participate in the excitement of the hunt. So not only will kids have fun hunting for nature objects (enhancing their knowledge of the natural world and developing science skills), but they also practice determining an object's location (spatial awareness and location are good math skills).

The following activity was adapted from Embark on a Math and Science Hunt. They have tons of cool year-round science ideas for each grade there, plus they have a neat 2010 Summer Activity Challenge where you can keep track of all the cool learning activities you do this summer.

First, determine your destination. Haven't been hiking in a while? No worries. Both national and state forest services have tons of resources online for both beginning and advanced hikers. Or, call your local parks and recreation department for suggestions. In fact, here's a list of suggestions for Ohio hiking destinations.

If you are in our neck of the woods (literally) in northeast Ohio, we invite you to come visit Secrest Arboretum. Our 90-acre research arboretum is home to numerous varieties and cultivars of trees and plants and has plenty of walking trails to keep you busy. We are open to the public free of charge seven days a week during daylight hours.

Once you've selected a destination, gather your supplies:

• Several pieces of card stock (8.5 x 11" is a good size)
• Pictures of flowers, lichen, trees, insects, flowers, etc. that are to be found on the hike. Printing off pictures from the internet is great. The possibilities are endless.
• Crayons
• Adventure pack
• Small plastic storage bags

Once your supplies are together, create your Adventure Pack. Do a little online research to learn about the flora and fauna in and around your destination. Find pictures of some fun and unusual things, like flowers with funny names (how about "sticky monkey flower"?) or unusual items like cool fungus or colorful bark.

Print the pictures, cut them out, and attach them to the card stock. Then label them along with the name, description and any unusual facts. You can even make these into clue cards if you want, putting the picture and name on one side of the card and the description and location clues on the reverse side.

If you have the chance, it's always a good idea to take your cards out for a kid-free test drive (granted, this may not work for you if you're going somewhere farther from home...but it's a good idea none the less). Look for each of the items you've identified and write down location clues to help the kids locate them.

Another strategy that would work well if you are able to take a prep hike without the kids is to take along a camera to photograph cool finds. You can write down location clues and look up cool facts about what you found once you return home. 

Finally, sell the adventure to your kids and take off on an exciting hunt! A story is only as good as the teller. Set the stage by putting all the clues together into a fun Adventure Pack, adding some storage bags to collect cool rock and stick samples along with a crayon and paper in case they want to draw pictures of any cool finds. Be sure to hype the hike as a science adventure trying to track down all the clues in the Adventure Pack.

Have a great adventure!