Trees 101

On Monday, 10/21/13, we learned the ins and outs of trees! Jacqui led us on a Tree Anatomy adventure! We learned about all the important parts of a tree:

Leaves: The leaves take in carbon dioxide, water and sunlight and make food for the tree...which is sugar!!!!

Bark: The bark is the armor that protects the tree from injury, insects and disease. The bark is the formed in the inner bark by the cambium and then is pushed out and dried out to make bark.

Roots: Located under the soil at the bottom of the tree. Roots are in charge of bringing water and nutrients from the soil all the way up through the trunk and into the branches and leaves.

Cambium: A thin layer of cells in the tree that forms the outer bark and branches or inner sapwood (also known as xylem).

Phloem: The system that brings sugar, hormones and enzymes from the leaves to the roots.

Xylem: The system that brings the water and nutrients from the roots to the leaves and branches.

Heartwood: The heartwood is the backbone of the tree. As new xylem is formed, the cambium pushes the older layers deep into the tree where they harden and form heartwood!

Let's talk trees!

Learning the many parts of the tree

We then learned how slices of a tree (called Tree Cookies) can tell us not only about the history of a tree, but also about the environment in which the tree grew up in! If a tree has large, thick layer in it, we can infer that it probably had a very healthy year - lots of sunshine, nutrients and water. If the layer in a tree is thin, it is possible this tree suffered some hardship by lacking these things. Each layer of a tree cookie has a light line and a dark line. The light line is represents the growth of the tree during the spring/summer. The dark line represents the growth of the tree during the autumn/winter. Together, they represent a year. We can figure out the age of a tree by counting these layers, called Counting the Rings.

After learning about what Tree Cookies can tell us, we were able to examine our own tree cookies and figure out the history of that tree. The Urban Naturalists then made up fictional stories based on the real, factual information they obtained from reading their tree cookies! They shared these out with the class:

Jaida shares her story of her tree infected by some crazy disease

Can you believe that this tree actually involved this Urban Naturalist's
sister being in love with a crazy tree? 

This tree actually went to a One Direction concert...

We then went outside to explore some trees around the schoolyard to see if they were healthy or showed signs of wear and tear.