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Dear Geography students,
Here is an opportunity that may interest a few of you. On Sunday, April 17, I have arranged with help from graduate students Alisa Hass and Matt Boehm a field trip to the UT Arboretum in Oak Ridge. The field trip is optional for class and is open to other
undergraduates who are interested. Please see attached information, which includes the web link and address of the Oak Ridge Arboretum, where we will meet at 11 am.
If you would like to go on the field trip, please email me ([log in to unmask]) by 6 pm tomorrow (Saturday). We can probably add 4-5 additional students to the students from my class who are attending (the field trip is optional for my class).
The trip will involve hiking trails and carrying out the following activities at sites along trails.
1. Collect information on forest composition in an area of the arboretum that was a pasture in 1939, prior to the resettlement of historic residents of this area for the so-called Clinton Engineering Works (part of the Manhattan Project). Forest succession
began with the resettlement of farmers who occupied this land. We can compare the composition of the modern forest after 60+ years of forest succession to the composition at a site that was forested in 1939.
2. Learn how to take increment cores from trees at the site, and examine the cores to determine approximate age of the trees. (Exact ages requires later laboratory analysis, but we can get approximate ages in the field).
3. Collect soil cores to examine soil charcoal as evidence of long-term fire history at the arboretum.
4. Visit the NOAA weather site to examine the various instruments used to collect meteorological data. No fence! You can walk right up to them.
All of these activities go along with my course, but if they sound of interest to you, please think about joining the group.
Sincerely,
Sally Horn