TREE RING PROJEKT BY RICHARD HAMRE BREIDALEN, TRINE ÅSHEIM ROHEIM AND ÅSE ANLAUG VERSTO TEACHERS: ÅSE INGEBORG KILAND, KARL TORSTEIN HETLAND AND BIRGIT JOHANNE KÅVAJORD. Fig.1. Here we are; Richard, Åse and Trine. 1
Abstract The Tree Ring Project is a project based on the idea of many schools working together; learning about each other s climate, and how one can extract climatic information from looking at the annual rings of a tree. The main theme (as written right above) will be executed by several schools in; Norway, The Czech Republic and Croatia. These schools will all work together and cooperate with teachers (some with scientists) who will guide them towards their common goal. Research question and hypothesis Will the rings of the three samples show us an equal growth? What make them different or equal? We have worked a lot on this project so far, and when it comes to the research question, we want to set a question mark on the growth. We re curious if the trees show us he same growth, and in that case why. Has it something to do with the climate? To find the result, we need a hypothesis: We will look on the skeleton plot to see if the growth of the trees is equal. Then we will look in previous registers 30 years back, to search for information enough to find a result. Theory: Counting the tree rings is very interesting. You can estimate the age of the tree, and find both good and bad years and seasons. Each tree ring marks a line between the dark late wood that grew at the end of the previous year and the relatively pale early wood that grew on the start of this year. One tree ring is composed of a ring of early wood and a ring of late 2
wood. But trees in tropical regions, for example, may have more than one growth ring per year, or appear to grow continuously and have no rings. In our region, trees add one annual ring per year, and they are easily seen in conifers. Therefore, easily seen in the trees we ve used. Rings may be closely spaced or widely separated. In our case, the tree rings were widely separated comparing to the tree rings that some of the others in the class got. Variations in tree rings are affected by the conditions of the climate. A tree adds extra tissue and produces a thick and wide ring when the spring starts early, when it s higher springtime temperature and when abundant rainfall increases growth. There are always variations in the climate every year, something that increases the trees, seen on the tree ring samples. Lower springtime and a lite spring are likely to shorten the growing season, causing the tree to have a narrower tree ring. Drought decreases the growth, and is also producing a narrower ring. It wasn t very crowding from neighboring trees in our territory, something that causes a series of narrow rings. When the series of narrow rings is more than three, it is suspected that there have been crowding neighboring trees. In our case, on the first sample, some series of narrow rings were three or more. Then it is suspected that there have been crowding neighboring trees for some years. The territory was dominated by pine trees. There were growing berries and wild flowers, and also some mosses. Our territory was characterized by little vegetation and much of sand soil and a lot of stone. There was a good drainage in that territory. 3
Materials and method We found the site behind our school ( Fig.1) First we measured 10X10 at the field and marked the area with flags. We also used the measure to find the trees stem diameter and to find the height of the trees. Fig.1. Photo over the site To mark the three trees we though was the healthiest to take samples off, we used orange ropes and wrote numbers on them(1, 2, 3) Increment corer (20 cm) to take a sample of the tree rings. Protractor (and the measure) was used to find the degrees of the trees. GPS to find out how high above the sea level we were and the location for the site Fig.2. Our site. We marked it with flags and numbered the tree 4
Fig.3. Åse is trying to drill a sample from the first tree. Now, we have done the three samples, and we are about to find the length from the tree. By finding the length of the tree and the degrees of the angle, we will find the height of the tree. Åse is searching for the angle on the picture below. Fig.4 and 5. Measuring the angel an length to find the hight of the tree 5
We analyse the vegetation at the site. It was not so much plants. But we found wild strawberry, viola and some grases. (Fig.6) Fig. 6. Analyzis the vegetation The location for our site is on moraine and to study the soil horizons we made a soilprofile. We classified this to be a podzol (fig. 7). It. was a sandy and stony soil which wil make a god drainage for the water Fig. 7 Podzol 6
Fig 8. Åse finds the age of the tree by counting the rings of the sample with a magnifying glass. Fig 9. Doing the skeleton plot. 7
To find out why it is good and bad growth, we was supposed to use climate data over temperature and precipitating. Unfortunately the climate data had just information until 1979 and our trees are from 1983-1984. So we could not find out how the weather was in the good and bad growth, for the trees. Fig. 10 Skeleton Plot 8
Data Summary We had our field down by the river and then we wanted to compare with those who had their field in the woods. The two figures show the growth from the two fields. Figure 2 have higher levels than figure 1, figure 1 have low levels and show more growth for each year. We can see at figure 2, that these trees had no good or bad growth from 2005. The reason is because of the vegetation (more trees less sunlight and less nourishment).the trees in figure 1 had big space, so they had more sunlight and nourishment that made their growth more. event 1900 1903 1906 1909 1912 1915 1918 1921 1924 1927 1930 1933 1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011-5 -4-3 -2-1 012345 1900 1903 1906 1909 1912 1915 1918 1921 1924 1927 1930 1933 1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 event -5-4 -3-2 -1 012345 event 1900 1903 1906 1909 1912 1915 1918 1921 1924 1927 1930 1933 1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011-5 -4-3 -2-1 012345 Figure 11: Trees down by the river. 9
event 1900 1903 1906 1909 1912 1915 1918 1921 1924 1927 1930 1933 1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011-5 -4-3 -2-1 012345 1900 1903 1906 1909 1912 1915 1918 1921 1924 1927 1930 1933 1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 event -5-4 -3-2 -1 012345 event 1900 1903 1906 1909 1912 1915 1918 1921 1924 1927 1930 1933 1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011-5 -4-3 -2-1 012345 Figure 12: Trees in the woods. Analysis and results In our project we had to find out the height of the tree, the circumference, etc. The use of a specific mathematic equation gave us the height of the tree. To get the height we used tangents. We had to find the length from where we measured the angles (v1 and v2) and then add the length with both angles: in this case the length from the tree was 12 meters and the angles v1 = 51* and v2 = 2* H = 12m (tan51* + tan2*) = 15.21m ))) While doing the project there were no problems. The annual rings showed exactly what they were supposed to show. They gave us the correct information from the tree and nothing seemed to be wrong. 10
Conclusions and discission The three samples have shown us both an equal and an unequal growth. Some of the samples show us that there have been some bad years, while there have been good years according to another sample. So maybe the trees are affected in different ways, or maybe we have counted the rings incorrectly. But the samples show us an equal period from 2000-2002. The all three samples show us bad years in this period. Unfortunately, we haven t data enough to check if it actually has been three bad years from 2000 to 2002. We saw on the skeleton plot from another group who did their samples in the same area, and their result was very likely to our; there were bad years from 2000 to 2002. Generally, the samples show us an unequal growth. And our result is that these samples aren t showing us an equal growth because of more nourishment for some trees, some trees are probably affected in different ways, and maybe some trees have gotten more sunlight than others. Discussion We had good samples with great information on it. But even though things could have gone better if at least one of us on the group had a trained eye when it comes to annual rings and how to extract as detailed as possible the information we were looking for. We concentrated on how the rings could represent the good years and the bad years weather-wise. Though there are other things that could slow down the trees process of growing. Things like; floods, fires, insect damage or a lack of nutrients in that specific year could be some of these points. 11
Acknowledgement In our time working on the project we had some help. Those people who helped us did not only help us with some of the work, but made it a lot easier for us to understand. Karl Torstein Hetland, Åse Kiland and Birgit Johanne Kovajord were the teachers that helped us achieve our goals. References/bibliography Web sites we used: - http://www.naturfagsenteret.no/c1761334/artikkel/vis.html?tid=1813219&within_ti d=1783505 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/dendrochronology - http://www.icogitate.com/~tree/treerings.ac04.htm - we also used some papers handed out by the teacher 12
Apendix Here he is, the boss. Richard Hamre Breidalen, a great youth from Kviteseid, has the research done a very good job. Well done, Breidalen. through Trine Å Roheim, a great worker, and has been a great paper-keeper. 13
Åse A Versto is the one who writes the report, copy the things that Trine and Richard has written and pastes it in. 14