Investigate the stories that trees tell us.

PURPOSE

Trees can grow to be very old, because of this they can help scientists understand what life was like a long time ago. Some trees can live up to 1000 years old! From trees, we can tell if it was hot and dry, or cool and wet and get a better understanding of what the climate was like way before we had thermometers! In this activity, students will count how old trees are, and look into the past.

GRADE LEVELS

TIME NEEDED

40 minutes

Curriculum LINKS

Grade 6, Science Topic E: Trees & Forests

MATERIALS NEEDED

Tree slices pictures (see below)

Video links below

Instructions

Review the information here and share it with your students: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/tree rings
Next, watch the following videos together
- Start at 52 seconds and watch until 2:50 minutes.
- This video provides a great overview of how trees can help us measure time and environment.

- Follow up with this 1:13 minute video showing tree ring details:

The climate is changing, but how do we know? Well, we can track the weather, which changes day to day. But how do we know what the trends are? We need to measure it from a long time ago with many observations.
Trees can grow to be very old, and each ring in a tree can tell us information. Scientists observe these tree rings to help understand what has happened in the past.
- Provide students with various images of tree slices.
- Ask students to make observations about the life of the tree? How many years did it live? Were there better growing years than others?
- See if students can count the rings, and identify years of growth where there may have been drought, or lots of rain. This can be hard to count, so there are no real answers here.
Trees along with many other data are telling us our climate is warming. Ask students to commit to one action to help us take action against climate change!

The following Edu-Kit was made possible thanks to TD Friends of the Environment Foundation.

See the images below for examples of tree rings and growth…

TREE #1

TREE #2

TREE #3

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Bring Nature Home is our online database of tried-and-tested CPAWS Southern Alberta activities! Here are some ways that you can bring nature home (or to the classroom) today!