The activities in this manual introduce students to the National Science Foundation’s Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program and to the variety of research being conducted at LTER sites. The activities are also designed to make students aware of the value of long-term research as a basis for conservation management and regional planning decisions. Twenty-four LTER sites are located in different biomes across the US and the Antarctic, and many international sites are found throughout the world.

A variety of activities have been selected, from experimental design and hands-on fieldwork to manipulation and examination of actual data sets collected by LTER scientists. Organizationally, the activities follow a logical progression. The first activity demonstrates the value of long-term research for detecting environmental changes that may not be evident in the short term. The second activity introduces students to the range of sites in the LTER network and to the goals of the LTER program. Subsequent activities are designed to allow students to explore some of the five core questions that serve to organize research efforts at LTER sites, to investigate local long-term datasets, and to conduct long-term studies in their schoolyard. In the concluding activity, students role-play scientists who are presenting new proposals for long-term research to a mock review panel.

In this teacher’s manual we provide background information, instructions for 6 activities, science standards covered by individual activities, suggestions about how to make the activities run smoothly, ideas for further study, and links to files containing data, graphs, and presentations necessary for the activities. We also have provided a companion student manual that includes an introduction to long-term ecological research and background, procedure, and supporting materials for each activity. The activities are appropriate for students in grades 9-12, and may be adapted for use in some 5-8 classes.

Long-term Research and the National Science Education Teaching Standards

In 1996 the National Research Council published the National Science Education Standards, a set of guidelines for the teaching of science in grades K through 12. These standards move science teaching away from vocabulary lists and “canned” laboratories with pre-set outcomes and toward the teaching of science as an active process that requires not only knowledge but reasoning and thinking skills.

The activities in this book are designed to embrace the philosophy set forth by the creators of the National Standards, which is that students of science must have both “hands-on” and “minds-on” experiences. By its very nature, long-term ecological research requires that students learn to think and analyze in terms of systems — an approach that is a key goal of the new standards. As they carry out the activities in this manual, students will take an active approach to learning through group discussions and presentations. They also will plan and conduct research activities, and communicate and defend their findings.

Long-term ecological research is inherently interdisciplinary. It creates a bridge between life sciences and Earth sciences as students learn how living organisms interact with their physical environment. What’s more, long-term ecological research is clearly science with a social perspective, since the outcome of such research can be key for environmental management and policy-making. Thus, the activities in this book will help teachers to address National Science Education Content Standards in several areas including “Science as Inquiry,” “Life Science,” “Earth Science,” “Science and Technology,” “History and Nature of Science,” and “Science in Personal and Social Perspectives.” Accompanying each activity is a list of Standards covered.

LTER Education and the National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation, which funds LTER research, is committed to enhancing K-12 science education. The LTER program is presently in the process of working with scientists, graduate students, teachers, and other educators to develop a model for inquiry-based, experiential learning at the LTER sites. Ultimately the LTER program hopes to include the following:

1) K-12 teacher enhancement programs that offer teachers a chance to conduct research at LTER sites

2) Satellite programs that establish field sites on or near school grounds so children can take part in research activities

3) Educational materials and techniques for K-12 teachers that help to put experiential learning into practice

4) Improved school access to LTER data sets via the internet

5) Complementary funding efforts for K-12 educator programs and student participation in LTER research

Many LTER sites already have significant educational programs. You may want to check the site nearest you to ask about participating.

Funding for this manual was provided by the National Science Foundation.

Student Introduction:

Imagine the following scenario. An oak tree takes up nutrients from the soil. A gypsy moth caterpillar then eats the oak leaves and the caterpillar’s droppings return to the layer of dead leaves, twigs, and other organic matter on top of the soil. Microorganisms next break down the droppings and they again become part of the soil.

Now imagine yourself as an ecologist (a scientist who studies ecology). What sorts of questions might an ecologist ask about the oak tree and caterpillar in the forest? Ecologists might examine such questions as: Why are caterpillars plentiful in some years and rare in others? Do bird populations increase when there are more caterpillars for them eat? What happens to trees and to the entire forest when caterpillars eat the trees’ leaves? How do plants growing along the ground respond when trees lose their leaves or die and more sunlight reaches the ground?

Asking questions such as these is an essential part of conducting science. Scientists usually ask many more questions than they can answer, and only some of the questions they ask can feasibly be developed into a research project. So how do scientists narrow down their questions to determine which ones should become the focus of research? Through reading the work of other scientists, making careful observations, conducting small preliminary experiments, and talking to their peers about their ideas, scientists narrow down their questions to the few that they could reasonably hope to answer. Once ecologists have narrowed down their questions, how might they go about answering them?

Answering questions about ecosystems is neither quick nor easy for several reasons. First, ecosystems consist of biological (living) things interacting with physical (non-living) things, and these interactions can be complex. Second, ecosystems vary in size — from something as small as a classroom terrarium to something as large as an entire river valley. Answering ecological questions is especially challenging because many ecosystem processes happen slowly or occur only once in a great while. It can take tens or even hundreds of years for a fallen tree to decay and for the nutrients in that tree to cycle back to the soil. It may take hundreds or even thousands of years for a lake to fill with soil and become a grassy meadow. A forest or city park may experience only small changes for hundreds of years — a tree dying and new plants slowly filling the space left by the dead tree. But, in the space of one afternoon, a tornado may rip through the forest or park, topple all the trees, and turn it into what looks like a wasteland. Which of these processes might we fail to notice if we conduct only short term, two-three year, studies?

In addition to happening over long and unpredictable time scales, ecological processes occur across large areas. Salmon swim from the ocean hundreds of miles inland. When they die and decompose, they have cycled nutrients from smaller fish they consumed in the ocean to the water of small streams. Similarly, acid rain produced in the Midwest may affect plants and animals thousands of miles away in the northeastern states. When studying processes that occur over long time periods and over large areas, it is difficult to find all the answers in laboratory studies. Thus, ecologists often conduct research outside in the ecosystems they are studying.

One approach to answering ecological questions is conducting long-term research in real ecosystems. Scientists use a variety of methods, including monitoring changes in plant and animal populations or in atmospheric conditions. For example, bird watchers may monitor the date of first arrival of spring migrant birds and meteorologists record the peak and low temperatures over many years. Field experiments are another kind of long-term research. As opposed to monitoring, where scientists observe changes occurring naturally, in field experiments scientists actually change something in nature and then compare the area they have altered to an area that is left intact. For example, you may have heard about experiments where scientists have added iron to the ocean, and are comparing populations of microscopic plants in areas where the ocean has been fertilized with iron to areas where nothing is added. The purpose of this experiment is to determine whether we might be able to decrease the amounts of CO₂ in the atmosphere by increasing the populations of ocean plants that absorb CO₂.

In the activities in this manual, you will be exploring long-term monitoring studies and field experiments. These monitoring and experimental studies are being conducted by ecologists and volunteers at Long Term Ecological Research sites across the US and internationally. After exploring how scientists conduct long-term research, you will learn how to set up long-term research in your own schoolyard.

The Long Term Ecological Research Network

Many scientists conduct research with a small number of colleagues and students. But when the public and scientists become aware of a problem that can only be solved by large-scale research, the government sometimes provides funds for large research projects involving hundreds of scientists and students. For example, when the US decided it wanted to be the first to reach the moon, the government funded many scientists from labs throughout the country to work with the National Atmospheric and Space Agency (NASA) to realize that dream.

Similarly, in the late 1970s, ecologists realized that many ecological questions could not be answered by individual or small groups of scientists conducting short-term research. Thus, in 1980, the National Science Foundation (NSF) established the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) network to support research on long-term ecological phenomena in the US. Although it is much smaller than NASA, the LTER program is the first ever to support long-term ecological studies over such a large area.

As of 2001, the LTER Network includes 24 sites representing different biomes across the US and Antarctica. A biome is a major, regional, ecological community of plants and animals. For example, one of the major biomes in South and Central America is the “tropical rain forest.” The LTER biomes range from prairie in Kansas to the towering coniferous forests of Oregon, from alpine tundra in Alaska to tropical forests in Puerto Rico, and from coastal marshes in Virginia to dry deserts in Arizona and New Mexico (see Table 1). Furthermore, the US LTER network includes two sites in Antarctica, and other countries around the world are beginning to develop an International Long Term Ecological Research network (ILTER). Brazil, Canada, Hungary, Costa Rica, and Israel are among the many countries that already have ILTER programs.

In addition to representing different biomes, LTER sites vary in a number of ways. Some sites have a long history of ecological research. For example, scientists had already been monitoring streamflow and water quality at North Carolina’s Coweeta Forest for 50 years before it became an LTER site. Some sites are mostly undisturbed by humans, such as the Toolik Lake site in the Alaskan tundra. Others have seen much human activity, such as Cedar Creek in Minnesota, which includes a series of abandoned farm fields of varying ages. (What questions might scientists be able to answer with fields of different ages?) Recently, as ecologists are more and more viewing humans as important parts of the environment, the LTER program added two urban sites: one in Phoenix, Arizona, and the other in Baltimore, Maryland.

More than 1,100 scientists and students currently conduct ecological research at the 24 US LTER sites. This research ranges from simple monitoring to large-scale field experiments. For example, scientists at the North Temperate Lakes LTER have monitored the date that ice forms and melts on lakes in Wisconsin for 150 years. Although when they first began recording ice data in the 1850s no one had ever heard of global warming, today these long-term data are important in helping us to understand climate change. In an ecosystem experiment also associated with the North Temperate Lakes LTER site, scientists divided a lake in half with an underwater curtain. On one side of the curtain, they added sulfuric acid while the other side was left intact. Scientists compared the chemistry and biota in the two halves of the lake to help us understand the effects of acid rain on lake ecosystems.

Sometimes LTER scientists at different sites cooperate to study how ecological processes differ in different ecosystems. For example, ecologists are aware that dead wood and leaves play an important role in the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients from living trees to soils. They are interested in how fast dead wood and leaves break down in soil in different ecosystems. Thus, scientists from 28 LTER and ILTER sites around the world are using similar methods to measure the decomposition of wood and leaves. Similar to the divided lake field study described above, this study involves comparing different treatments. However, unlike the lake study, where scientists actually changed the ecosystem to make two treatments (added sulfuric acid to one half of the lake), in the decomposition study, scientists did not alter the ecosystem. Instead, each LTER site serves as a different treatment. Because each LTER site differs in many ways, the decomposition study is not as well controlled as the lake study. Can you think of some factors that might differ at different LTER sites and that might affect how fast wood and leaves decompose?

The results from LTER research have already been used to help solve environmental problems. For example, scientists at the Luquillo LTER in Puerto Rico have monitored shrimp populations and studied the effect of dams on shrimp and fish mortality. Their findings have influenced watershed managers, who have stopped taking water from the Culebrinas Rivers at crucial hours of the day and have installed a fish ladder so migrating fish can get around the dam.

Table 1. LTER Sites in the US and Antarctica.

Name	Location	Biome
H.J Andrews Experimental Forest	Cascade Mountains, Oregon	Temperate coniferous forest
Arctic Tundra	Toolik Lake, Alaska	Arctic tundra (lakes and streams)
Baltimore Ecosystem Study	Baltimore, Maryland	Eastern deciduous forest: urban landscape
Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest	Fairbanks, Alaska	Taiga
Central Arizona-Phoenix	Phoenix, Arizona	Desert (Sonoran desert scrub, river, residential mix)
Cedar Creek Natural History Area	Minnesota	Eastern deciduous forest; tallgrass prairie (old fields)
Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory	Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina	Eastern deciduous forest
Harvard Forest	North-central Massachusetts	Eastern deciduous forest
Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest	White Mountains, New Hampshire	Eastern deciduous forest
Jornada Experimental Range	Southern New Mexico	Desert (hot)
Kellogg Biological Station	Central Michigan	Tallgrass prairie (Row-crop agriculture)
Konza Prairie Natural Research Area	Flint Hills, Kansas	Tallgrass prairie
Luquillo Experimental Forest	Luquillo Mountains, Puerto Rico	Tropical rainforest
McMurdo Dry Valleys	Antarctica	Tundra (polar desert oases)
Niwot Ridge-Green Lakes Valley	Rocky Mountains, Colorado	Mid-latitude continental alpine tundra
North Temperate Lakes	Northern Wisconsin	Eastern deciduous forest (north temperate lakes)
Palmer Station	Antarctic peninsula	Pelagic polar marine
Plum Island Sound	Rowley Basin, Massachusetts	Coastal estuary
Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge	Central New Mexico	Subalpine mixed conifer (riparian forest); grassland; desert (hot & cold)
Shortgrass Steppe	North Central plains of Colorado	Native grassland
Virginia Coast Reserve	Oyster, Virginia	Coastal barrier islands
Florida Coastal Everglades	Everglades National Park, Florida	Fresh & saltwater marshes, estuaries
Georgia Coastal Ecosystems	Central Georgia coast	Coastal barrier island/marsh complex
Santa Barbara Coastal	Southern California coast	Semi-arid coastal zone / giant kelp forests

Activity 1

Why Conduct Long-term Research?

Background

Ever since the industrial revolution, cars, power plants, and other machines have been adding CO₂ and other “greenhouse gases” to Earth’s atmosphere. The overwhelming majority of scientists now agree that global warming caused by humans is occurring at a rate unprecedented in the Earth’s long history.

How can scientists measure whether or not the climate is changing? We have all experienced daily fluctuations in weather — the natural highs and lows that occur from day to day and year to year. How can these be distinguished from true, long-term changes? In this activity, you will examine data collected over a period of nearly 150 years to try to answer this question.

The data set that you will be working with is somewhat unusual. It consists of the dates of spring “ice-out” (the break-up of winter ice cover) on Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. Lake Mendota is part of the North Temperate Lakes LTER site. Although it has only has been part of the LTER network since 1981, different people have been noting and recording the date of Lake Mendota “ice-out” since 1855 — which is long before the LTER program had been established, and indeed long before the term “ecology” had even been invented!

“Ice-out” data are particularly useful as an indicator of global climate change. When you look for evidence of global warming by analyzing other kinds of climatic data, such as air temperature, you face some challenges. For example, air temperature measurements can be biased by what time of day the observations are made (midday temperatures are warmer than morning or evening readings), where the temperature is measured (elevation and exposure to sunlight can affect temperature readings), and how the measurements are made (thermometers vary in both precision and accuracy). So even if long-term air temperature readings exist for a site, over the years, people may have collected information in different ways. Those procedural differences can hide the real changes, or make small changes look bigger than they actually are. Figure 1 presents data on mean annual air temperatures in central Wisconsin from 1895-1991. Do you see a trend in these data?

Ice-out data naturally average ups and downs in air temperature over many days. A single data point — the day that ice cover breaks apart in early spring — actually expresses the cumulative effects of local weather conditions over the winter season. For example, when cold temperatures come early in the fall, ice forms sooner than usual. Or, if the winter is mild, the ice melts sooner than usual. So if the ice-out dates show a significant change over many years, that is a good indicator that the climate really has changed.

Even though ice-out dates are a better indicator of climate change than air temperatures, they still are not perfect. For example, although air temperature is the most important factor influencing the date of ice-out, other factors — the amount of snow on the lake, the average wind speed, and the amount of cloud cover — also influence how quickly the ice melts. Local geography can affect snow cover and wind speed — a lake in a protected hollow might accumulate less snow and experience less cooling from wind than a lake in a more exposed location. So data from lakes in different locations could suggest different climate trends even though none existed.

Another complication in interpreting ice-out and other climatic data is that certain regular climatic events, such as El Niño, cause predictable changes in weather conditions on a time scale of years to decades. So a long-term global warming trend could be obscured by a short-term cooling trend casued by El Niño. Local land use also may influence ice-out dates. For example, urban development near a lake can raise the air temperature locally, because concrete absorbs heat from the sun and tall buildings block the wind. Or, warm water flowing out of a power plant can raise the lake water temperature.

Finally, observer bias is a concern. How do you define “ice-out?” One person may say the ice-out date is when cracks appear in the ice and it starts to break apart; another might define ice-out as the day when the surface of the lake is completely open and free of ice. We do not know whether all the observers who collected data over the past 150 years used exactly the same standards.

In spite of these potential problems, the Lake Mendota ice-out data are still among the best indicators of global change. Since all measures of the environment have certain drawbacks, ecologists choose indicators that are the best among those available.

Note to Teachers

In this activity, students will graph 150 years of ice data from Lake Mendota. The student procedure indicates that they will receive printed spreadsheets of these data, but if you prefer, you can alter these instructions by telling your students they will receive electronic copies of the data and will use database software to manipulate and graph them. We have provided the data in formats suitable for either option.

The files needed for Activity 1 are located on this website. If you would like your class to manually graph the data, you will need the file “Activity 1 Data.” This file is in both MS Word and PDF formats and contains ice-out data necessary for this activity as well as example graphs for your reference. You can print this file and give the data to your students in printed spreadsheet form.

If you would like your students to use database software, you will need two files: “Activity 1 Data Teachers (Excel),” and “Activity 1 Data Students (Excel).” Both of these files are in MS Excel format and contain raw data necessary for this activity. The teacher’s version also contains examples of graphs for your reference.

The Word, PDF and Excel files are all located under the “supplementary files” section of the LTER teacher’s manual website (http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/LTER/manual.asp).

We have written this activity assuming students will choose to graph ice duration. However, we also have provided the data for date of ice formation and date of ice breakup. You can encourage students to explore these data sets also.

For this activity, divide your class into about 10 teams (either pairs or small groups). Assign each group 15 years of data to work with (e.g., 1855 - 1869, 1870 - 1884, and so on). Ask each group to evaluate its own 15-year data set to determine whether ice-out dates show a changing trend within this period. Students will find pronounced oscillations in the data set, resulting from normal yearly fluctuations in weather. Encourage them to propose explanations for these short-term variations. Next, ask the groups to tape their individual graphs together and post them on the classroom wall to create one long-term graph. Then they will compare small-group results to the combined result and look for evidence of a changing trend in ice-out dates over the longer term. Note that prior to starting the work, all students will need to work together to standardize the labeling for the x and y-axes of their graphs, so that the graphs can be successfully merged at the end of the activity.

These and other data may be available through the LTER website (http://lternet.edu/). In the past, data available on the LTER website were difficult to use directly off the web. Thus, we have downloaded and transposed the data so that they are easy to graph. The LTER Network hopes to add data sets that are readily usable for educational purposes in the future, so check the LTER website periodically.

In the “Suggestions for Further Study,” we have included an activity that allows students to see how data may be manipulated — sometimes inaccurately or unfairly — to represent a particular point of view. Ask students to pick a point of view with respect to global warming that they want to present. Then encourage them to play around with the data, using software-graphing features or hand-drawn graphs, in an attempt to use the data to best substantiate their points of view. Some ways they can change the presentation of the data include graphing a limited segment of the data set that does not appear to show any trends and changing the scale of the x or y axis. Have the students experiment with different ways to present the data and then use their results to present a particular point of view to the class. Other students should ask questions about how the data were analyzed, forcing the presenter to defend his/her argument or to admit holes in his/her reasoning. You can challenge students to find similar examples of data manipulation in the media.

Objectives

Students will:

Develop an understanding of the importance of long-term data

Learn to graph by hand or using Excel software

Interpret graphs showing ice-out dates over a period of 150 years

Learn about one method scientists use to measure global warming

Understand how data can be manipulated to support different points of view

National Science Education Standards covered:

Science as Inquiry – Development of:

Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Understandings about scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Science and Technology – Development of:

Abilities of technological design (5-8 & 9-12)

Understandings about science and technology (5-8 & 9-12)

Earth Science – Development of an understanding of:

Structure of the Earth System (5-8)

Energy in the Earth System (9-12)

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Development of an understanding of:

Populations, resources, and environments (5-8)

Science and technology in society (5-8)

Natural and human-induced hazards (5-8 & 9-12)

Environmental quality (9-12)

Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges (9-12)

History and Nature of Science – Development of an understanding of:

Nature of science (5-8)

Nature of scientific knowledge (9-12)

Materials

Pencils
Graph paper
Tape or thumbtacks
Lake Mendota “Ice-Out” data (either in Excel or print form)
Computer, spreadsheet software (optional)

Procedure

1. Examine the spreadsheet handed out by your teacher. This spreadsheet includes the original ice data collected at Lake Mendota over a 150-year period.

2. Notice the headings at the top of the columns.

· The first column is labeled “year.”

· The second column is labeled “Ice On (Date).” This gives the date on which the ice froze in the fall.

· The third column is labeled “Ice Off (Date).” This shows the date on which the ice melted in the spring.

· The column labeled “Ice Duration” tells you how many days the ice was frozen.

3. Take a look at the first row of data, for the winter of 1855-56. In this winter, the ice froze on December 18 and melted on April 14. So the “Ice Duration” was from Dec. 18 to April 14—a total of 118 days.

4. Notice that, in addition to being expressed as dates, “Ice On” and “Ice Off” are also expressed as numerals—the number of days since January 1. For example, look in the sixth column. The “Ice Off (Day of Year)” for 1855 is 105; that’s because from January 1, 1856 to April 14, 1856 is 105 days.

5. Your teacher will either tell you, or you will decide as a class which data you will graph (ice-on, ice-out, or ice duration). Which do you think will give you the most useful information, or the clearest evidence of a trend?

6. For each graph you create, use the x-axis (horizontal axis) to indicate the years, from oldest to most recent. Which values will you plot on the y-axis?

7. Before making your graphs, the entire class needs to agree on a labeling system and scale for the graphs. At the end of this activity, you will be merging your graphs with other groups’ graphs. It is essential that you label the values on the axes in exactly the same way and have the same scale on all the graphs.

8. On the y-axis, what should be the lowest value? What should be the highest value? What are the units? You will need to make a scale that can incorporate the highest and lowest values for the entire 150-year data set.

9. Using pencil and graph paper, draw the axes and label them. Also give each graph a descriptive name. (If your teacher has given you an electronic copy of these data, you will be using Excel or other database software to create these graphs.)

10. Graph your 15 years of data. For each graph, answer the following questions:

· Is there much variability from year to year, or only a little?

· Do you see a trend? As time elapses, does the value tend to increase, decrease, fluctuate, or stay the same?

11. Pair up with one other group and compare your results. Did you reach the same or different conclusions based on your data set?

12. Now, combine the graphs from the entire class. Tape them together so they form a continuous graph. Answer the following question as well as questions you come up with on your own. With the longer-term data set, do you see a trend?

13. If you graphed ice duration, answer the following questions. (You may want to adapt these questions for ice formation and ice-out data, using the numeric value for date.)

· What is the average ice duration in your data set?

· How does this compare to the average ice duration over 150 years?

· What is the longest period of ice duration in your data set?

· What is the shortest period of ice duration in your data set?

· What are the longest and shortest periods of ice duration in the entire data set? In what years do they occur?

14. On your graph, draw a line to indicate average ice duration (or date of formation or ice-out) over 150 years. You may need to remove your graph from the others to do this; be sure to replace it when you are done. If you are working with a graphing program, have the program calculate the average for you (you may ask your teacher for assistance). Within your short-term data set, how many years have longer-than-average ice duration? How many years have shorter-than-average ice duration? Compare these values among all of the groups. Do you see a trend in years with longer or shorter than average ice duration over time?

15. To conclude the activity, think about the implications of your data analysis. You should answer the following questions as well as any others the class comes up with.

· Is the “picture” you get about lake ice any different in the shorter-term from the longer-term data set?

· What does analysis of the data sets tell you about the importance of short-term vs. long-term data?

· Do these data sets provide evidence for climate change?

Suggestions for Further Study

Could urbanization, not climate change, cause a shift in ice-out dates?

Some scientists who examined the North Temperate Lakes ice data concluded that there have been three significant climatic periods since 1855. The first period, lasting from 1855 to 1890, had, on average, years with the longest ice duration. A second period, from 1890 to 1980, had ice durations of intermediate length. During the third period, from 1980 to the present, ice duration had the shortest length. These scientists think that air temperatures during these three climatic periods caused the differences in ice durations. That is, during the first period, winter and spring temperatures were, on average, colder than they were during the second period, and temperatures during the second period were on average colder than during the third climatic period. The scientists go on to state that these changes in ice duration are consistent with changes expected due to the greenhouse effect and resulting global warming.

Others scientists have argued that the area around Lake Mendota has become much more urbanized — so the trends in ice-out data could be a result of warming from urbanization that raised the air temperature around the lake, instead of global warming due to greenhouse gases. How might you test these two hypotheses?

How might shorter or longer periods of ice cover affect animals or plants in the lake?

A study conducted in Lake Michigan shows the value of extended ice cover to whitefish. Whitefish populations are largest in summers following winters with long periods of ice cover. Why? Whitefish eggs are laid in fall and develop over the winter. If there is a protective cover of ice, the eggs do not get tossed around by wind-whipped waves, so more of them survive to hatch. You may want to research requirements for other species and think about the implications of changing ice duration on animals and plants living in lakes.

Science and Politics

If you are using Excel software, you can manipulate the data themselves and gain insight into some interesting issues about the interface of science and politics. Scientists almost always “fool around” with different ways to graph their data. Eventually, they decide on a way to present their data that most accurately reflects the trends they observed. Although the public often views scientists as completely neutral and uncreative, there is often a good deal of judgment and creativity that goes into deciding how to present data.

Unlike scientists, who try to find a way to present their data that most accurately reflects reality, politicians, advocacy groups, and the media are notorious for changing the scale of axes on a graph to exaggerate a trend or to make a large change seem smaller. These differences in the way data are presented often lead to confusing messages about what data actually mean. Although nearly all scientists now believe that climate change is real, many politicians still choose to ignore its implications for humans and other organisms. You may want to choose a point of view about climate change and experiment with different ways to present the data to support your view. Without changing any data values, experiment with graphing the data in order to present your point of view. Is changing the axes to support a particular point of view ethical for scientists or politicians?

Effects of El Niño on ice-out years

You may want to identify which of the last 50 years have been “El Niño” years. Can you find any correlation between El Niño years and changes in ice-out dates? If your classroom has Internet access, look for information on El Niño years. You may find the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) website useful: www.elnino.noaa.gov.

Tracking changing CO₂ levels and average temperatures

You can research US or global temperature trends to see if they support or refute results obtained in the ice-out activity. Many scientists believe that the global rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels is responsible for increasing global temperatures. You can explore the relationship between increasing global carbon dioxide levels and increasing global temperatures using Internet resources including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (www.noaa.gov), the National Climatic Data Center (www.ncdc.noaa.gov), and the Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov/globalwarming/) sites.

Long-term ice and climatic data on other lakes

You can explore LTER websites for similar ice data. For example, the North Temperate Lakes site has shorter-term data sets on a number of other lakes. Niwot Ridge in Colorado also has a few years’ worth of lake ice data, and the Palmer Station in Antarctica has sea ice records. You may also want to explore other climatic data, such as temperature and rainfall, on the LTER websites.

Activity 2

Exploring the LTER Network

Background

A desert, an arctic lake, and a prairie are just some of the different ecosystems represented in the network of LTER sites. What do we mean by the word “ecosystem?” It does not refer to a place, such as a forest or a lake. Nor is an ecosystem a collection of plants and animals.

Think of the root word, “system.” Similar to other systems (for example, a school system or a network of computers), an ecosystem is a functioning unit in which the parts are constantly interacting and changing. Some of the parts of ecosystems are living – from the large and obvious, such as plants and animals, to the small and hidden, such as soil microbes and parasites. But an ecosystem also includes the physical factors – temperature, moisture, and nutrients – that act upon and are influenced by the living organisms. All ecosystems have similarities – for example, they all have nitrogen and water cycles. Yet each ecosystem also differs in important ways from other ecosystems – in climate, types of soil, and species of plants and animals.

It is important to remember that the words “ecosystem” and “biome” have different meanings. A biome is a major regional ecological community of plants and animals. There are probably fewer than 20 well-defined biomes in the entire world. An ecosystem, however, can be something as small as a terrarium, as long as it has boundaries and includes both living and non-living things and their interactions.

Core questions for LTER research

At each of the LTER sites, scientists try to answer five core questions about the way ecosystems work. By studying the same questions in the different LTER ecosystems, scientists learn what processes are common to all ecosystems and how these processes differ between sites.

1) What controls the growth of plants? For example, why do plants grow where they do? What factors control how quickly they can grow, and how big they can get?

2) What causes populations of plants and animals to vary over time? Why is a species abundant one year but not the next, or found in different places at different times?

3) What happens to the organic matter that plants produce? For example, when leaves fall to the ground, what factors control how quickly they decay?

4) How do inorganic nutrients, such as nitrogen and carbon, move through soil and water?

5) How do disturbances, such as fire, drought, or logging, affect ecosystems?

In this activity, you will first view a PowerPoint presentation and then use the Internet to “tour” the various LTER sites. Next you will choose one LTER site and answer some questions about the research being conducted there. This activity will help you to see how different experimental and monitoring approaches can be used to investigate the five key LTER and many other research questions.

Note to Teachers

Part A – Introduction to the LTER Network

The PowerPoint introduction to the LTER sites is provided on the LTER manual web page (http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/LTER/manual.asp) and is located under the “supplementary files” heading. You need to have PowerPoint software to access this file. Click on the link and, using the “save as” option under your file menu, save the file as a PowerPoint presentation to a disk or your hard drive.

We suggest you show the presentation to the class to promote discussion among students. Before you begin the presentation, give your students a copy of Table 1 (see the Introduction to this manual), which lists the 24 LTER sites. Let each student choose an LTER to investigate. Alternatively, you could have your students choose a site during the PowerPoint presentation, which contains a map of all and pictures of many of the LTER sites. During the presentation and the subsequent Internet exploration, each student should take notes about the site he or she has chosen. You may want to use the teacher notes below for additional information to convey to your students during the presentation; these notes also contain questions you may want to ask your students during the presentation to promote discussion. After you have run the PowerPoint presentation, lead a follow-up discussion. We have provided you with a student handout containing topic ideas (following teacher notes).

If you prefer, you can have students view the presentation individually or in small groups. The PowerPoint presentation is also available in a web version on the same webpage (“HTML” is adjacent to the link). If your students are using older computers or software they may have trouble viewing this version. The discussion questions available in the teacher notes are also in the web version of the PowerPoint presentation. If you have trouble, contact Marianne Krasny at mek2@cornell.edu to obtain a copy of the file.

Part B – Using the Internet to investigate LTER sites

Students will need computers with Internet access for this activity. Plan for students to work at the computers individually or in pairs. We have provided a handout with questions students should answer as they explore their chosen LTER site. The “Suggestions for Further Study” include an activity in which students visit a nearby LTER site. If there is an LTER site near your school, you may want to familiarize yourself with it before this activity; most LTER websites have information on tours and whom to contact for information. Another Suggestion involves meeting a scientist who does research at an LTER site and/or is a professor at a nearby university or college. Most LTER websites also have contact information for scientists. Furthermore, many university scientists conduct research at LTER sites very far away from their schools. It is possible for you to live in California and have a nearby university professor who conducts research at an LTER site in Alaska.

Activity 2: Exploring the LTER network

Teacher’s Notes for PowerPoint Slideshow Presentation

Use these liner notes to engage your class in discussions about the LTER network and some of the individual slides. Questions marked with a “·” are intended for you to pose to your students.

SLIDE 1

Welcome to the Long Term Ecological Research network.

SLIDE 2

Introduction to LTER. The LTER network started in 1980 with only six sites, and as the next slide will show, currently has 24 sites.

· What is the definition of ecology? Ecology can be defined as the “study of the relationship between organisms and their environment.”

· Why do we need to study ecology?

The people pictured in this photo are using a GPS system in the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest LTER in Fairbanks, Alaska.

SLIDE 3

Introduction to LTER, continued. LTER sites are present in many biomes not mentioned in this slide. You can refer to Table 1 in the Introduction and at the end of these notes for a list of sites.

· In what biome is your school located? Students may find it helpful to examine biology textbooks for example of biomes throughout the world.

· How many LTER sites are located in similar biomes?

· Why do you think it is important to have LTER sites in many different biomes?

The animal pictured on the slide is an Eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) in the red eft stage; this newt was found in the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in North Carolina

SLIDE 4

Map of all 24 LTER sites. You might want to pause a moment and encourage students to look at sites they want to explore later in Activity 2. This map is also located at http://lternet.edu/.

SLIDE 5

The HJ Andrews Experimental Forest LTER site, located in Oregon. The bare patches are logging sites.

SLIDE 6

Konza (pronounced “Kwanza”) Prairie Natural Research Area LTER site in Kansas.

SLIDE 7

Virginia Coast Reserve LTER site.

SLIDE 8

Jornada Experimental Range LTER site in southern New Mexico. The Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge LTER site is also located in New Mexico.

SLIDE 9

The Palmer Station LTER site is one of two LTER sites in Antarctica, and is located on the coast. The McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER site is inland.

SLIDE 10

Luquillo Experimental Forest LTER site, Puerto Rico.

SLIDE 11

The Baltimore Ecosystem Study is one of two urban LTERs; the other is located in Phoenix, Arizona. These two new LTER sites are the first to include humans as components of the ecosystems being studied. At these sites sociologists and ecosystem scientists are working together to understand how humans interact with and affect their environment.

· Why might it be important to study how humans interact with the ecosystems in which they live?

SLIDE 12

Map of International LTER sites. If your students are interested in these sites, they can visit the ILTER website at: http://www.ilternet.edu/. One of the “Suggestions for Further Study” involves exploring the ILTER network.

SLIDE 13

Why the LTER mission. One of the reasons the LTER network is so successful is because there is continuity over the years and from scientist to scientist.

· Why is it important to have an overall mission for 1100 scientists at 24 sites to follow?

· What might happen if there were no such mission, or set of guiding principles?

The photo is of a fish weir that was designed to contain fish in the experimental reaches of the Kuparuk River, Arctic Tundra LTER site, North Slope of Alaska.

SLIDES 14-17

Mission of the LTER network. These four slides present the LTER network mission edited to be more readily understood by students. A different mission goal is presented in each slide. Listed here are the mission goals as presented in the slides, followed in italics by the official goals as written by the LTER network. You may want to pause at each slide and discuss the mission goal.

· To help scientists at different sites work together. Conducting major synthesis and theoretical efforts.

The LTER network thinks it is important for scientists from many different sites to gather and discuss their respective research results (synthesis) in an effort to understand how different processes and patterns (for example, net primary productivity) vary between very different ecosystems. Many LTER scientists also develop models (theoretical efforts) in an attempt to better understand and predict ecosystem functioning.

· To understand ecology over large areas and long periods of time. Understanding general ecological phenomena that occur over long temporal and broad spatial scales.

LTER scientists are interested in understanding how basic ecological phenomena (for example, forest succession or human-induced acid rain) vary over very long periods of time and across very large areas.

· To help solve environmental problems. Providing information for the identification and solution of societal problems.

This goal is straightforward: LTER scientists examine how humans interact with and affect their surrounding ecosystems, and propose ways to solve environmental problems.

· To develop long-term experiments that can be used by scientists in the future. Creating a legacy of well-designed and documented long-term experiments and observations for use by future generations.

It is crucial that LTER scientists consider the long-term aspects of their research. For example, scientists at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest LTER site have recently initiated a 50-year study. Most of the scientists currently leading the project will have retired well before the study is over, so it is important that experiments, protocols, and data are well-documented and designed for understanding over the long-term. Furthermore, samples need to be collected in a way that can be continued for a very long time, and need to be stored or otherwise archived.

The photos include a pronghorn antelope in the Shortgrass Steppe LTER site in Colorado and a lake at the Harvard Forest LTER site in Massachusetts.

SLIDE 18

Five Research Topics. This slide quickly introduces the idea that LTER scientists study five main research topics.

SLIDE 19-23

Core Research Areas. These slides contain an edited version of the five LTER core research areas. As with the previous set of slides, the text of the slides is listed and then followed in italics by the official core research areas of the LTER.

Organic matter decomposition. Pattern and control of organic matter accumulation in surface layers and sediments.

What happens to the organic matter that plants produce? For example, when leaves fall to the ground, what factors control how quickly they decay? What happens after decay?

Plant and animal populations. Spatial and temporal distribution of populations selected to represent trophic structure.

What causes populations of plants and animals to vary over time? Why is a species abundant one year but not the next, or found in different places at different times? How do populations of one organism affect other populations or organisms?

Nutrient cycling. Patterns and movement of inorganic inputs through soil, and ground and surface water.

How do inorganic nutrients, such as nitrogen and carbon, move through soil and water? Nitrogen is an example (there are many others such as phosphorous and calcium) of inorganic elements that plants need to survive and flourish. LTER scientists want to know how these elements are used by various ecosystem components, such as trees and streams, and how they cycle between these components.

Plant growth and “net primary production”. Pattern and control of primary production.

Net primary production is the rate at which biomass, or energy stored in material by plants, accumulates. What controls the growth of plants? For example, why do plants grow where they do? What factors control how quickly they can grow, and how big they can get?

Disturbance. Patterns and frequency of disturbance.

How do disturbances, such as fire, drought, or logging, affect ecosystems? How often do natural disturbances occur, and what regulates them? How important are disturbances to ecosystem health?

SLIDE 24

Biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) components of ecosystems. Research conducted at LTER sites is often designed to look at the interactions between biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems.

· What are some examples of biotic factors in ecosystems? Abiotic factors?

SLIDE 25

Examples of biotic factors. Biotic factors include all living things that affect organisms. The photos include cacti at the Central Arizona - Phoenix site in Arizona and two ground beetles from the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest LTER site in Oregon.

SLIDE 26

Examples of abiotic factors. Abiotic factors include all non-living things that affect organisms. Some other examples include pH, humidity, salinity, sunlight, nutrient availability, and elevation. On the left is a photograph of a meteorological stand that measures a variety of variables including temperature and wind speed and direction. On the right is a photo of the Palmer Station site in Antarctica.

SLIDE 27

Abiotic and biotic interactions. This is a good opportunity to ask your students to discuss why it is important to study both types of factors. You may also want to have your students discuss how these ecosystem components interact. For example:

· How does yearly precipitation affect plant growth (i.e., less vs. more precipitation)?

· How could the size of a predator population affect the number and behavior of prey populations? For example, how could the number of owls (that eat mice) present in an area affect the number and behavior of mice in that same area?

· What would happen if you ignored all biotic (or abiotic) factors when researching an ecosystem?

This photo shows research examining nitrogen (nutrient) cycling at the Shortgrass Steppe LTER site in Colorado. The next several slides are examples of some different types of research being conducted at many LTER sites.

SLIDE 28

Sampling periphyton in a freshwater marsh at the Florida Coastal Ecosystems LTER site. Periphyton are sessile organisms, such as algae and small crustaceans, that live attached to surfaces projecting from the bottom of a freshwater aquatic environment.

SLIDE 29

A seed trapping experiment at the Arctic Tundra site in Alaska is pictured in the upper left corner; in the lower right corner is a photo of a Central Arizona - Phoenix graduate student examining a data logger.

SLIDE 30

This helicopter was used to add calcium to an entire watershed at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest LTER in an experiment designed to examine some of the long-term effects of acid rain. Acid rain has leached many essential nutrients, including calcium, out of the soil at Hubbard Brook over the past several decades; many scientists are concerned that this may negatively affect tree health. In this experiment scientists are adding calcium back to forest soils to see how trees respond.

SLIDE 31

On the left: melting an ice hole in the McMurdo Dry Valley LTER site in Antarctica. On the right: a photo taken at the North Temperate Lakes LTER site in Wisconsin.

SLIDE 32

These ladders are used in a rhododendron-removal experiment in the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory LTER site in North Carolina. By removing rhododendron from the forest and seeing what happens, scientists will better be able to understand how rhododendron affects forests. For example, if the forest erodes more quickly after removing rhododendron plants, scientists might conclude that rhododendron is an important component in keeping forest soils intact. This could help forest managers better understand how to manage their land. Ladders have been put in places so researchers can access the site without disturbing it.

· What might scientists learn by removing rhododendron plants and watching how the forest responds?

SLIDE 33

This weir at the Jornada Experimental Range LTER site in southern New Mexico measures water runoff during major storm flooding events. All the water from areas higher than the weir (behind it) flows through the “V” and can be measured by scientists.

· Why do you think scientists might be interested in how much water runs off the desert after large rainstorms?

SLIDE 34

This site is part of a snowpack enhancement study at the Niwot Ridge LTER site in Colorado. (It is summer in the slide – the snowpack is altered in winter by the addition of a fence.)

· What do you think scientists might learn by using a fence to keep snow off the ground in one area, and to accumulate to a greater depth in another area? The fence is used to stop blowing snow.

SLIDE 35

Importance of long-term ecological research. If you have already conducted Activity 1, your class may already understand the importance of long-term research. In fact, later in this presentation we use an example from the North Temperate Lakes LTER site (Lake Mendota, the same lake used in Activity 1) to show why short-term research might overlook long-term trends.

SLIDE 36

“Why do we need long-term research?”

SLIDE 37

…to learn about: slow processes, infrequent events, and ecological trends. The next three slides will provide examples of these.

SLIDE 38

Slow processes. Many ecological processes are very slow. For example, it can take a very long time for a tree to fully decompose.

· Can you think of other very slow ecological processes?

SLIDE 39

Infrequent events. Not all ecological events happen often. For example, hurricanes or fires can be rare and infrequent in many sites, yet still have large and long-term effects on those sites. The El Niño and La Niña weather patterns are very important in North America, but do not happen every year.

· Can you think of other infrequent events? Some examples: gypsy moth forest defoliation and droughts.

· Can you think of infrequent events on a very small scale? For example, an animal dying on a certain patch of forest might be an infrequent event for the organisms that live in the soil there.

SLIDE 40

Ecological trends. Long-term research can help scientists identify human-induced trends such as global warming.

· Can you think of other ecological trends? An example is the shifting (maybe north or south) of a plant or animal habitat range.

SLIDE 41

There are many examples of long-term research conducted at LTER sites.

SLIDES 42-46

The next few slides use Lake Mendota data as an example of the need for long-term data. Activity 1 in this manual deals extensively with these data.

SLIDE 47

End of presentation. Your students should proceed with Part B of this exercise – an Internet exploration of an LTER site.

SLIDE 48

Photo credits.

Activity 2: Exploring the LTER Network

Student Handout: PowerPoint Presentation Questions

Student Name(s)

1) Discuss daily, monthly, and annual variability in such things as weather. For example, does it snow or rain more one year than the next year? Is it often colder in one year than another? Would short-term research allow scientists to understand this variability? Why or why not?

2) Describe some research questions that would be hard to answer with a short-term study. What are some of the advantages of long-term as opposed to short-term ecological research?

3) Why is it important to have LTER sites all over North America?

4) Can you think of any drawbacks to conducting long-term research?

5) What are some other examples of infrequent ecological events?

6) List some other natural or human-induced disturbances that may affect a very large area.

7) Discuss other “slow processes,” in addition to tree decomposition.

Activity 2: Exploring the LTER Network

Teacher’s Example Answers to “PowerPoint Presentation Questions” Handout

Short-term research would not allow scientists to completely understand this variability.
Long-term research allows scientists to fully learn about slow processes, ecological trends, and infrequent events.
The location of sites across the country allows scientists to look at differences between biomes and across large areas.
Long-term research can be expensive, and requires long-term commitments from scientists.
Examples: hurricanes or forest fires.
Examples: salmon migrations, climate change.
Examples: forest growth and maturation.

Activity 2: Exploring the LTER Network

Student Handout: LTER site “Virtual Tour” Questions

1. What is the name of the LTER site you chose to visit?

2. Why does it interest you?

3. Where is it located? (Name the state and the nearest big city.)

4. Describe the ecosystem(s) present at your site. Is it a forest, desert, lake, etc? Note that more than one ecosystem may be represented at the site you have selected.

5. What kinds of plants are present at the site? How can you tell? (For example, do you see them in pictures of the site, or are they mentioned in a research report?)

6. What kinds of animals are present at this site? How can you tell?

7. What is the weather like at this site? (Lots of rain or little rain? Cold or warm in winter? Sunny or cloudy?)

8. How might the climate influence the organisms that are present?

9. If you could visit this site in person, what would you most want to see?

10. If you were the chief scientist for the project, what would you like to study here?

11. Describe one or more of the current research projects at your chosen site. What are some of the results from this research? What have scientists learned about the ecosystem(s) at this site?

12. LTER scientists generally conduct studies to address one or more of the following questions. Can you tell which of these questions are being studied at your site? How might you design a study to address one or more of these questions at your site? (Note: You do NOT have to answer the questions listed below. Just tell whether or not they are being studied at your LTER site, and what sorts of studies might be used to answer them.)

· What controls the growth of plants? For example, why do plants grow where they do? What factors control how quickly they can grow, and how big they can get?

· What causes populations of plants and animals to vary over time? Why is a species abundant one year but not the next, or found in different places at different times?

· What happens to the organic matter that plants produce? For example, when leaves fall to the ground, what factors control how quickly they decay?

· How do inorganic nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen move through soil and water?

· How do natural disturbances such as fire, drought, or logging affect the ecosystems at your site?

13. What else did you learn about your chosen site?

Objectives

Students will:

Become familiar with the network of LTER sites

Use the worldwide web to pay a “virtual visit” to an LTER site (http://lternet.edu/)

Identify the types of research being conducted at that site and explain how this research fits in the five core LTER research questions

National Science Education Standards covered:

Science as Inquiry – Development of:

Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Understandings about scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Science and Technology – Development of:

Understandings about science and technology (5-8 & 9-12)

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Development of an understanding of:

Science and technology in society (5-8)

Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges (9-12)

History and Nature of Science – Development of an understanding of:

Science as a human endeavor (5-8 & 9-12)

Nature of science (5-8)

Nature of scientific knowledge (9-12)

Materials

Classroom computer with PowerPoint software, projector adaptor, screen
Computer terminals with Internet access (one per two students)

Procedure

You have already viewed a PowerPoint presentation about the LTER network. Now you will be using the Internet to take a “virtual tour” of some of the 24 different LTER sites funded by the National Science Foundation. Follow the steps listed below and answer the questions in the accompanying handout your teacher has given you.

Go to the LTER home page (http://lternet.edu/).
Select the link to the map of LTER sites. What LTER site is nearest your school?
Select the site that you would like to tour and click on it. Proceed to that site’s web server.
Take some time to explore the site. Then, answer the questions on the handout your teacher has given you.

Suggestions for Further Study

Visiting a site

If you are lucky, your school may be located near one of the LTER sites, and it may be possible to organize a field trip to the site. You may be able to contact the LTER education coordinator to ask about this possibility.

Meeting a scientist

Even if an LTER is not within field-trip distance of your school, you may be able to identify a scientist who conducts research there but works at a college or university close to your school. You may be able to recruit this researcher to visit your class and discuss his or her work at the LTER site.

Virtually visit another LTER site

You may want to “visit” another LTER site – either in the US or in another country (international LTER website: (http://www.ilternet.edu/). While you are exploring this site, think about the following questions:

· What biomes are represented at your second site? How are the two sites physically different from each other?

· How does the research at the second site differ from the first? How is it similar?

· Are you more interested in the research being conducted at one of the sites? Why?

· If you were a scientist at a university, what sort of research would you do, at which site, and why?

Activity 3

Long-term Research on Soil and Water Systems

Background

Research at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest started about 50 years ago. At that time, the northeastern states were experiencing a drought and many communities were suffering from water shortages. Knowing that plants (especially trees) take up large volumes of water from the soil and convert it to water vapor, scientists wondered whether cutting down trees might increase water supplies. They developed a hypothesis that could be tested through long-term research: if trees were cut down and therefore not using as much water, more water would flow into the reservoirs.

Hubbard Brook flows through New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest and drains a range of small mountains. The tributaries of Hubbard Brook form a set of discrete watersheds, separated by mountain ridges. Because these watersheds share many characteristics in common (for example, similar size and vegetation), they provide an ideal setting for conducting ecosystem experiments.

In the laboratory, scientists use controls to compare with results of experiments. For example, a scientist studying the effect of salt on plants would expose some plants to salt (treatment) and compare their growth to plants growing without salt (control). Similarly, scientists at Hubbard Brook devised experimental treatments for three watersheds to see whether different ways of cutting trees would affect the amount of water reaching the stream. When scientists manipulate the world outside of the laboratory, they are conducting a field experiment.

In one watershed, researchers cut all the trees in the middle of winter and left them lying on the snow so that the soil was not disturbed. In another watershed, all the trees were cut and entirely removed. In a third watershed, researchers divided the forest into 25-meter-wide strips. In the first year, they cut and removed all the “merchantable” materials (leaving branches and tree tops) in every third strip. In subsequent years, they returned and cut the adjacent strips. This treatment was designed to investigate less damaging ways of cutting an entire watershed. And finally, the last watershed was left intact, similar to a control. However, unlike laboratory studies, the ecosystem experiments did not have true controls. Although the different watersheds were similar in size and vegetation, they were not exact replicates. (It is virtually impossible to have true replicates or controls in nature because of differences in soil, plants, etc.) Thus, the watershed that was left intact is referred to as the “reference” rather than the control watershed.

To measure the changes in water flowing out of the different watersheds, scientists installed special gauges on forest streams, called “weirs.” Weirs are permanent concrete structures consisting of a large basin with a v-notch cut on the side of the downstream end. The stream flows directly into the basin where it slows down and becomes still, and then flows out over the v-notch. By constantly measuring the stream height as it passes over this v-notch, and entering this height into a known formula, researchers can determine streamflow volume. A picture of a weir at Hubbard Brook is on the next page.

In addition to measuring water quantity, the scientists at Hubbard Brook measured nutrients in the water, including nitrogen and sulfate, and pH. These data have helped us to understand how nitrogen and other nutrients cycle through the plants, soil, water, and atmosphere. The pH and related measurements have helped us to understand the impact of acid rain on northeastern forests. The scientists also erected weather stations with precipitation collectors to measure water and nutrients coming into the watersheds from rain and snow.

While scientists at Hubbard Brook have conducted a great deal of research on disturbances caused by humans, they have also conducted research on natural disturbances. For example, they have studied how outbreaks of leaf-eating caterpillars affect water and nutrient cycling, and how powerful ice storms can affect forests. Hubbard Brook is truly an “experimental” forest.

In this activity, you will be looking at some of the original streamflow data collected at Hubbard Brook to determine the short-term and long-term results of a forest tree-cutting experiment. You will be examining data from Watersheds 2 and 3. Watershed 2 is the clear-cut treatment watershed and Watershed 3 is the reference watershed. All trees in Watershed 2 were cut in December 1965 and left on top of the snow. In the summers of 1966, 1967, and 1968 two herbicides were applied to the entire watershed to prevent the regrowth of any vegetation. Herbicide application was useful in answering the hypothesis discussed above (i.e., does deforestation cause an increase in streamflow?), and it helped other, collaborating scientists that were studying nutrient cycling. Because this second group of scientists was interested in how nutrients cycle in an ecosystem after a major disturbance and without any trees or plants, they applied herbicide for three years to inhibit the growth of all new plants. It is important to note that the herbicides did not themselves affect the overall nutrient cycles in the watershed, and that, aside from inhibiting terrestrial plant growth, the herbicides had no negative effects on organisms either in the watershed or downstream.

The photograph below shows a scientist applying herbicide with a backpack sprayer.

Note to Teachers

In this activity, students will compare a treatment watershed (clear-cutting followed by herbicide application in Watershed 2) with the reference watershed (uncut forest in Watershed 3). Students will manipulate the data to determine whether the treatment produced the desired result: less water taken up by vegetation and more water leaving the watershed as streamflow. (Another way to present this would be that students are testing the hypothesis that clear-cutting reduces streamflow.) Students will compare the results suggested by a few years of data to the conclusions that can be drawn from a long-term study. To improve the quality of interpretation, students will examine a supplemental data set containing annual rainfall amounts. In the “Suggestions for Further Study” there is also an opportunity to examine vegetation surveys. Finally, it is also important to note that this research project was collaborative in nature; that is, while many scientists were interested in the streamflow hypothesis presented here, others were asking very different questions (e.g., regarding nutrient cycling or ecosystem functioning in clear-cut watersheds).

In each Hubbard Brook watershed, scientists collected streamflow data on a daily basis as instantaneous flow rates: liters of water per second. They then integrated these values over time and standardized them for the area of the watershed. The results are reported as millimeters per day per standard area. This conversion makes it possible to conveniently compare streamflow to precipitation, and to compare streamflow in watersheds of different sizes. For example, in 1958 in Watershed 2, a value of 645.15 is listed in the data files. This means that during 1958, 645.15 mm of water (for any given area – for example, 1 square meter or 100 square meters) flowed out of Watershed 2.

In this activity, students will be working with streamflow and precipitation data collected from Watersheds 2 and 3 at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. The student procedure indicates that they will receive either printed spreadsheets or computer files containing these data. We have provided the data in formats suitable for either option. Students may work in small groups or as individuals.

The file containing easily printable spreadsheets is located in both PDF and MS Word formats on the LTER Manual webpage (http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/LTER/manual.asp), under the “supplementary files” heading. It contains annual streamflow and precipitation data for both Watersheds 2 and 3 in a handout for students. There is also a teacher’s section that includes another data column containing the difference between Watershed 2 and Watershed 3 (i.e., W2 – W3). The teacher’s file also contains several graphs of precipitation and streamflow, for your reference.

There are two MS Excel computer files: one for teachers, and for students. They are named, respectively, “Activity 3 Data Teachers (Excel),” and “Activity 3 Data Students (Excel).” The teacher’s file contains annual precipitation, streamflow, and streamflow difference in Watersheds 2 (treatment) and 3 (reference), and also includes graphs for your reference. The student version does not contain graphs or streamflow difference values. Both of these files are located on the same webpage.

Your students will use either graph paper or spreadsheet software to generate a figure that shows streamflow changes over time in the treatment and reference watersheds. Begin the activity by having the entire class review the data set and discuss the best approach for data analysis.

Students should create two separate graphs: annual streamflow in W2 and annual streamflow in W3, or one graph containing both. One interesting way to compare the treatment and reference watersheds is to transfer the graph for W3 (reference) to a transparency, so that it can be superimposed on the graph for W2 (treatment). It is also instructive to graph the annual average precipitation for each watershed on transparencies and superimpose it on the two streamflow graphs.

Students will first graph results from the five years immediately following the clear-cut, and will then examine the remaining 18 years. Through comparing the short-term and long-term data, students should gain an understanding of how short-term trends can be misleading in ecology. One option for the activity’s classroom organization would be to have your students graph the baseline data individually or in small groups, and then gather as an entire class to discuss what the data indicate (using the questions in the Procedure). Repeat this for the second data section (the five years after the clear-cut) and again for the third section (the final 18 years).

In addition to graphing changes in the two watersheds over time, students can use the annual streamflow values to calculate the difference in streamflow (W2 - W3) between the watersheds. They will observe a pre-treatment difference between W2 and W3. Then they will observe that in the years immediately after the treatment, the difference between W2 and W3 increases dramatically. Streamflow in W2 increased an average 32 % in the three years after clear-cutting.

With time, however, the difference between the two watersheds returns to baseline values. And then, something very interesting happens. Streamflow in W2 becomes even smaller than it was before the treatment. Thirteen to 23 years after treatment, the average streamflow in W2 is 7% less than it had been BEFORE treatment.

What’s going on? For three years after the trees were cut, herbicides were applied to prevent any vegetation from re-growing. But once the herbicide treatments stopped and the vegetation was allowed to grow back, water yields declined rapidly. The original forest had been composed of mature hardwood species such as sugar maple, American beech, and yellow birch. But when the scientists stopped applying herbicides, the regenerating forest had a different composition. Most of the trees were pin cherry and paper birch. Studies at Hubbard Brook have demonstrated that these two species transpire more, and thus take up more water from the soil, than the original mature forest species. Data on total vegetative biomass in W2 can be found on the Hubbard Brook website (see “Suggestions for Further Study”).

The story is not over, however, because pin cherry trees do not live very long — usually only about 30 years. The data set provided only goes through 1988, 23 years after treatment. As pin cherry trees die off at Hubbard Brook, they should be replaced by the original hardwood species — maple, beech, and yellow birch. So the trend in water yield could change again.

Table 1. Hubbard Brook Watershed Treatments.

Watershed	Size (hectares)	Treatment
2	15.6	Clear-cut in winter 1965-66. Trees left on the ground. Herbicides applied in 1966, 1967, 1968.
3	42.4	Reference (no treatment).
4	36.1	Strip-cut in 3 phases, in 1970, 1972, 1974. Trees removed from watershed.
5	21.9	Whole-tree harvested during the dormant season of 1983-1984.

For students who would like to carry out an additional activity, data from a second treatment (strip cutting in Watershed 4) can be located on the Hubbard Brook LTER website. This activity is in “Suggestions for Further Study,” below. Watershed 4 was divided into 49 strips, each strip 25 meters wide. In autumn of 1970, every third strip of forest was cut. A second set of strips was cut in 1972. In 1974, the third and final set of strips was cut. In contrast to W2, where all the felled trees were left in place, on W4 the trees were removed. However, no herbicide was applied to prevent vegetation regrowth.

Objectives

Students will:

Develop an understanding of the importance of long-term data

Learn to graph by hand or using Excel software, making decisions about what data to graph

Interpret graphs showing ecosystem response to an experimental treatment

Learn about methods scientists use to examine ecosystem functions

Examine the importance of “controls” in experiments

Examine how hypotheses are not always completely correct

Learn about human attempts to modify ecosystems

National Science Education Standards covered:

Science as Inquiry – Development of:

Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Understandings about scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Life Science – Development of an understanding of:

Populations and ecosystems (5-8)

Matter, energy, and organization in living systems (9-12)

Science and Technology – Development of:

Understandings about science and technology (5-8 & 9-12)

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Development of an understanding of:

Populations, resources, and environments (5-8)

Science and technology in society (5-8)

Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges (9-12)

Natural resources (9-12)

Environmental quality (9-12)

History and Nature of Science – Development of an understanding of:

Nature of science (5-8)

Nature of scientific knowledge (9-12)

Materials

· Pencils, graphing paper or access to computer workstations with spreadsheet/graphing software such as EXCEL

Transparencies

Procedure

Examine the spreadsheet on the computer or the hard copy handed out by your teacher. This spreadsheet includes the streamflow and precipitation data collected from Watersheds 2 and 3 at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest over a 30-year period.
Notice the headings at the top of the columns.

a) The first column is labeled “year.” Data from 1958-1988 are presented.

b) Streamflow data from the different watersheds (columns B and C) are presented as annual streamflow in mm per standard area per year. These values have been adjusted to account for the difference in size between the watersheds.

c) For each watershed, mean annual precipitation values are also provided (columns D and E). As you can imagine, the amount of rain usually varies from year to year, and the amount of rain that falls on the watershed obviously influences how much water comes out in streamflow.

Initially, you will be graphing the streamflow data in Watersheds 2 and 3 for the years before the clear-cutting treatment (1958-1965). Scientists refer to this as “baseline” data. You will then graph streamflow data in both watersheds for the five years following the treatment (1966-1970) and will assess the streamflow response of Watershed 2. Lastly, you will graph the remaining data (1971-1988) from both watersheds.
You (and your partner, if you are working in pairs) should examine the data. What is the best way to graph them? What will you use as your x-axis? Y-axis? You are interested in determining the watershed baseline and then the response following the clear-cutting treatment. Your teacher may lead a classroom discussion about the best way to graph these data.
Graph streamflow in Watershed 2 (the treatment watershed) from 1958 – 1965. These are the baseline data.
Do the same with Watershed 3. Decide if you want to graph the two watersheds together or on separate pages.
Do you see any trends in annual streamflow in the watersheds? How do the watersheds compare to each other (e.g., does one watershed always have higher streamflow values, or is there variability between years and watersheds)? What do these baseline (before cutting) data tell you about the watersheds’ streamflow? When doing field experiments, scientists try to have an understanding of how the ecosystem is working before the treatment. In interpreting the results of the field experiment, it is essential to compare the watershed streamflow after the treatment (clear-cut) to the streamflow before the experiment, for both watersheds. (What mistakes might you make if you did not have data from before the clear-cutting?) Think about why it is important to monitor the reference watershed (Watershed 3) as well as the treatment watershed (Watershed 2) both before and after the treatment.
Continuing on the same graph(s), you should now include data from the next five years (1966-1970). Do you see any changes in watershed streamflow? By about how much did streamflow change? Are these changes in one or both watersheds? How do the two watersheds compare to each other in the five years following the treatment? If there is a change, what year marks the change? The original hypothesis of this experiment was that if we clear-cut and applied herbicide to a watershed, more water would flow out of it. Did this happen? Can you make any conclusions?
Now put the remaining data on the same graphs (1971-1988). What do you see now? What has happened to the streamflow in both watersheds, and how do they compare to each other? Do you see any differences between the short-term data (1966-1970) and the long-term data (1966-1988)? Does this information change your interpretation of the results? Do the reference and treatment graphs follow the same pattern? How do you explain what is happening?
Graph average annual precipitation in Watershed 2 and Watershed 3. Your teacher may ask you to transfer the graph to a transparency and superimpose it on the graph from step 5, and if you made separate graphs, step 6. Does the precipitation information change your interpretation of the results?
Using a graph, what is another way you might compare these two watersheds’ annual streamflow? Consider graphing the difference between the two watersheds (i.e., Watershed 2 annual streamflow – Watershed 3 annual streamflow). What can you learn from this graph?
You have probably noticed that there are differences between the short-term and long-term W2 streamflow data. Why might this have happened? Your teacher may lead the class in a discussion of possible reasons.
Given all of the streamflow data you have seen, what can you say about the original hypothesis? Does cutting all the trees in a watershed increase streamflow? Think about short- and long-term response. What does this experiment say about the need for long-term research? If the research had stopped five years after the clear-cut, do you think your (and other people’s) perceptions of clear-cutting effects on streamflow would be different than they are now? If communities are trying to increase reservoir levels, is clear-cutting nearby forests a good way to do it?

Suggestions for Further Study

Vegetation Data

Find vegetation data on the Hubbard Brook website that might help explain short- vs. long-term Watershed 2 streamflow results following clear-cutting. The Hubbard Brook website can be found by first going to the National Long Term Ecological Research program’s website at http://lternet.edu/ and then following appropriate links.

Other Watersheds

You could do the same graphing steps using the data for Watershed 4, where trees were strip cut over the course of a four-year period. Visit the Hubbard Brook website (see immediately above), where you should be able to find the Watershed 4 streamflow information by clicking on the “data” button and following links to “stream.” Getting data off of the HBEF website can be difficult: the data need to be downloaded and reformatted for database software. You may need to ask your teacher for help, or click on the “email” link of the HBEF website to ask the HBEF data manager for assistance.

Given the results you saw when an entire watershed was clear-cut, how much of an increase in streamflow would you expect to see in Watershed 4 after one-third of the trees had been cut? After 2/3 of the trees had been cut? After ALL of the trees had been cut?
Compare your predictions to the actual results. How are they different from your prediction? What could explain this difference?

Societal Influences on Research

Consider the following question: Why did clear-cutting and herbiciding a forest to get more water for human use seem like a great idea in 1955? How would society react to clear-cutting and herbiciding a forest to increase water supply today? How have changing societal values influenced the research being conducted at Hubbard Brook and elsewhere? How does current research at Hubbard Brook differ from the research that was conducted in the 1950’s and 1960’s?

Acid Rain

Hubbard Brook is very famous because it was here that scientists first discovered acid rain. The knowledge gained from Hubbard Brook acid rain research was instrumental in the development of the federal Clean Air Act and subsequent amendments. The Clean Air Act and its amendments called for a reduction in acid rain-causing emissions from coal-fired power plants and other pollution sources. Because Hubbard Brook is a long-term ecological research site, scientists have had the opportunity to continue studying the effects of acid rain on northeastern forests after the passage of the Clean Air Act. And, unfortunately, while research shows that precipitation is generally becoming slightly less acidic, current studies indicates that acid rain and its effects are still a big problem.

In March 2001, Hubbard Brook scientists issued a news release urging the public to continue to work to reduce acid rain. "The science on this issue is clear," says Dr. Gene Likens, director of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, and one of the scientists who discovered acid rain at Hubbard Brook. "Current emission control policies are not sufficient to recover sensitive watersheds in New England. The deeper the emissions cuts, and the sooner they are achieved, the greater the extent and rate of ecological recovery from acid deposition." Dr. Likens’ work is a powerful example of how scientists can influence policy at the national level. You may want to visit recent HBEF acid rain publications, located at: http://www.hbrook.sr.unh.edu/hbfound/hbfound.htm.

You may want to do more research on the Clean Air Act and acid rain using internet sources, including the Hubbard Brook website. Check out the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) acid rain website at http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/arp/, or the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) at http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/. The National Science Teachers Association is another good source for acid rain materials, at http://www.nsta.org/.

Activity 4

Schoolyard LTER

Adapted from the Central Arizona - Phoenix LTER Education Website by Monica Elser et. al

Background

Many ecological studies start out as observational or monitoring studies, such as the study that monitored ice-out at the North Temperate Lakes LTER (see Activity 1). Such monitoring data are invaluable because they allow us to become familiar with ecosystems and to observe changes that occur over time. Furthermore, many monitoring studies raise questions that can later be tested with experiments. For example, scientists at the North Temperate Lakes site monitoring the pH of lakes noticed an increase in the acidity of the water. At the same time, they observed declines in health and populations of many lake organisms. They wondered whether the problems the plants and animals were suffering could be due to acid rain. To test this hypothesis, they conducted an ecosystem study where they added acid to one lake and left a second lake untreated as a reference. It turned out that the decline in pH (increase in acid) in lakes did cause many of these organisms to decline. Thus, careful observations followed by ecosystem experiments led to a better understanding of acid rain.

The protocols in this activity are adapted from the Central Arizona - Phoenix LTER site. Both scientists and students are using the protocols to collect monitoring data in schoolyards and other sites in Phoenix and the surrounding area. Because the scientists do not have the time or money to collect data from a wide range of sites, they have asked students to help collect data at sites the scientists are not able to visit. Students who are careful in their data collection are making a real contribution to the LTER study and to our understanding of ecosystems.

In this activity, you will set up a long-term monitoring project at your schoolyard or other place in your community. You may want to contact scientists at a nearby university or LTER site to see if they might be interested in collaborating with you on this project. It may be possible to form a student-scientist partnership in which the scientists help you to design your study and use your results. If you are able to collaborate with a scientist, you will likely need to adjust these protocols according to his or her suggestions.

We have included several protocols below. We suggest that everyone start out with the Mapping Your Schoolyard, Site History, and Site Management protocols, and then choose an ecosystem component you are interested in monitoring (e.g., arthropods or birds). Your teacher will discuss with your class what is most appropriate for your class and your school.

Note to Teachers

Depending on which activities you will be doing, you may need the following student worksheets included below: Habitat Description, Bird Data, or Arthropod Data. The Habitat Description worksheet should be used by your students in both the Arthropods and Birds activities.

Mapping Your Schoolyard

In this activity, the procedure calls for students to obtain a map of the schoolyard. You may decide that this is a good classroom activity (i.e., assign student(s) to obtain a map from the principal or other school administrators), or you might obtain the map yourself. It is important that the map is as recent as possible. You may want to consider only mapping the section of the schoolyard that your students will use in their research activities, as mapping the entire schoolyard can be very time consuming.

Site History

This activity instructs students to locate old maps and/or aerial photographs of their schoolyard. You may have luck contacting your local town or city government for older maps; or consider visiting websites such as:

· www.mapquest.com

This site may have current aerial photographs of your area. Type in the address, click on the map, and if an aerial photo is available for your location, a tab labeled “aerial photo” will appear next to the tab labeled “street map.” Both maps and photos can provide land-use history that will help your students with this activity.

· http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.asp

You may be able to find current aerial photographs of your area on this site. Type in your town name in the “find a specific place” box, and go from there. This site also has topographic maps.

· www.topozone.com.

This site has topographical maps for most of the country available online.

· www.usgs.gov

The United States Geological Survey’s site has a great deal of information about maps and photographs and how to order them.

There are a number of ways that you and your class can develop a site history. You could work on this as an entire class developing one site history together, or you could work with the maps and photos as a class and then ask students to individually write up site history reports. There is no single, correct way to do this – what is important is helping students understand that scientists first try to understand the history of research sites before proceeding with monitoring and experiments.

Site Management

The same basic instructions apply to the Site Management activity as the Site History. There is no correct or absolute way to do this, as long as students are able to develop an understanding that current use is also crucial to understanding how a system works and will influence how research on a system can be conducted.

Arthropods

In this activity your students will be installing “pitfall traps” to collect and monitor ground arthropods. If you and your students decide to monitor arthropods over the long term, you may want to consider monitoring several different habitats or conducting a field experiment. For example, you could examine what types of arthropods are present in different habitats, how the types and number of arthropods change over time (e.g., you could collect arthropods every month for the entire school year and track changes), or how arthropods respond to an experimental treatment in your schoolyard. For example, you could ask your site manager to stop mowing one area of lawn, or you could have your students regularly add water to an otherwise dry area.

You will need to find local arthropod identification guides that will allow your students to identify arthropods to Order. Consult local universities or bookstores for arthropod and/or insect and other guidebooks. The Practical Entomologist by Rick Imes has a simply key to common insect orders; and the Peterson’s Field Guide series has a book on insect identification. A university or LTER website may also be a good source of information about local arthropods. If you cannot find a good identification guide, you can have your class simply discover the arthropods they discover into groups with similar physical characteristics. If you choose this option, be sure that your students take very specific notes so that you may use the same grouping characteristics in subsequent sampling efforts. It is preferable to use a real identification guide. Use the Arthropod Data worksheet below to record the number of arthropods collected.

Birds

In this activity, students will use a method called “point counts” to monitor birds. They will need to be able to identify the birds in their schoolyard. You may want to check with your school library or local bookstore to see if they have any bird identification books. The Audubon Society’s and Peterson bird identification field guides are both excellent. You may be able to locate a local bird watcher who is interested in helping your class. Check with your state Audubon society (visit http://www.audubon.org/ for more information). You will need the Bird Data worksheet found below to record the number of birds seen during point counts.

You may want to consider making both the Arthropod and Bird activities into long-term research projects. If you carefully design and record the sampling scheme for the monitoring or field experiment, it should be possible for students in subsequent years to use exactly the same protocols to continue the research. Students may find it rewarding to be part of long-term ecological monitoring, and future classes may be able to look at many years of data and analyze trends.

The term “replicate” is used in the bird activity. You may want to discuss this term with your students and help them incorporate it into their research design. A replicate can be defined as a “repetition of an experiment or procedure.” Scientists use replicates so that they do not make erroneous conclusions based on a single experiment or sampling point. For example, if scientists are interested in determining what types of birds live near parking lots, they will conduct many point counts at different locations that are all near parking lots. One of these sites might have an unusually high number of house sparrows, and no other birds; and perhaps the other sites all have similar mixes of sparrows, rock doves, and starlings. If only one site had been studied (the one with only house sparrows), scientists might incorrectly conclude that only house sparrows live near parking lots. If many replicates were studied, then scientists would be able to learn that many different birds live near parking lots – and perhaps they would then try to determine why one specific parking lot has many house sparrows. In general, replicates help account for and determine what types of variability exist in natural systems. You may want to help your students design their point counts to include replicates of the habitat(s) they are studying.

Objectives

Students will:

Develop an understanding of how scientists study sites before conducting experiments

Gain experience working with maps and/or aerial photographs

Learn about local land-use history and maintenance

Learn about arthropods and how to identify them

Learn about birds and how to identify them

Learn about the importance of long-term environmental monitoring

Develop long-term monitoring sites in their schoolyards

National Science Education Standards covered:

Science as Inquiry – Development of:

Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Understandings about scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Life Science – Development of an understanding of:

Populations and ecosystems (5-8)

Diversity and adaptations of organisms (5-8)

Behavior of organisms (9-12)

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Development of an understanding of:

Populations, resources, and environments (5-8)

Natural resources (9-12)

Environmental quality (9-12)

History and Nature of Science – Development of an understanding of:

Nature of science (5-8)

Nature of scientific knowledge (9-12)

Activity 4: Schoolyard LTER

Habitat Description Sheet

You need to provide a description of the habitat at each of your arthropod or bird monitoring research locations (for example, at each individual pit trap or point count location). This description includes the amount and type of vegetation and physical features at different heights in each location. This description will provide an additional piece of data to use when analyzing results.

Date _________________

Observers’ Names ________________________________________________________

Overall Site (name or description) ___________________________________________

Bird Point Count or Arthropod Pit Trap Site Name _________________________

· Record information for the 5 meter by 5 meter area surrounding each individual pit trap

· Record information for the each entire (20 meter radius) bird point count area

Total Area Surveyed (use 5 meter edge or 20 meter radius to calculate) _____________

Habitat Description

1. Ground Cover (% gravel/soil; lawn; all other vegetation; pavement or building)

____________________________________________________________________

2. Vegetation between 15 cm and 1.5 m tall (% coverage) _______________________

____________________________________________________________________

3. Vegetation over 1.5 m tall (% tree canopy coverage) _________________________

____________________________________________________________________

4. Record other useful notes about the habitat you are describing. Be specific.

Activity 4: Schoolyard LTER

Arthropod Data Sheet

Observer’s Name ________________________________________________________

Date ________________________ Pit Trap Number _____________________

Name of Person Identifying Sample __________________________________________

Record notes about the sampling design (for example, did you follow step #2 in the procedure exactly, or did you use a grid system?)

________________________________________________________________________

Comments (for example, “It rained over the sampling period and the cups filled with water.”)

________________________________________________________________________

Order	Number Counted	Notes

Activity 4: Schoolyard LTER

Bird Data Sheet

Observer’s Name ________________________________________________________

Date ________________________ Point Count Site _____________________

Time Start ___________________ Time End __________________________

Weather (wind speed, temperature, and cloud cover) ____________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

Other Notes: ____________________________________________________________

Species Name	Number of Birds	Notes

Preliminary Procedures

Mapping Your Schoolyard

Ecologists map research sites as a first step in documenting the living and non-living aspects of an ecosystem. A map also establishes the boundaries of the research site. In this activity you will map all, or a part of, your schoolyard. You will use your map for a variety of purposes: showing your data collection locations, comparing features of your schoolyard to other schoolyards, and comparing changes to the schoolyard over time.

Obtain a preliminary map of your school site from your teacher or another source.
If your schoolyard has changed in recent years, the map may no longer be accurate. Therefore, it is important to go out and “ground truth” your map. Make sure your preliminary map contains the major structures (buildings, parking lots, etc.) and vegetation (trees, shrubs, etc.) at your school site. You will need to go outside and verify that the structures and vegetation included on the preliminary map still exist and determine whether any new ones have been added.
Prepare an updated map by carefully measuring the distance from known locations to new objects and then plotting the new objects on your map. You will need to know the scale of your map to be able to do this.
Include the following information on your map:

Direction (an arrow showing north)
Scale (for example, 1 meter on the map = 100 meters on the ground)
Human-made structures (sidewalks, playing fields, parking lots)
Water sources
Topography – any hills or gullies
Plantings such as rows of flowers or trees
Optional: Path of sun and wind exposure

Site History

Why would you want to know the history of your site? One of the questions ecologists try to answer is: Why do plants grow where they do? Often knowing about past ecological conditions helps us to answer this question. For example, knowing when the last fire or clear-cut occurred in a forest might help explain why certain plant species are present. At the Hubbard Brook LTER, pin cherry and paper birch appear shortly after a clear-cut, whereas sugar maple, American beech, and yellow birch dominate the mature forest that has not been disturbed for many years.

At the Central Arizona - Phoenix LTER, ecologists are particularly interested in the impact of humans on the ecosystem. The past actions of humans are among the most important factors explaining why plants grow where they do. For example, mature saguaro cacti are rare on Arizona State University’s "A" mountain. Without considering past human influence, you might think that the absence of saguaro cacti is due to unfavorable soils or micro-climate. By ignoring human factors, you would overlook the main reason for the lack of mature saguaro cacti – people removed them.

Where might you find information on the history of your school site? One way to find such information is to locate old maps and aerial photographs. You may be able to locate maps and photographs from your local town or city government, or your school principal may have them. You may also be able to locate maps and photographs on the Internet. Ask your teacher for assistance with where to find maps and photos. Your teacher will also tell you what format to use as you write the site history.

As you develop your school’s site history, you should consider the following questions:

· What was at your site before it became a school?

· Is there a written site history?

· When did it become a schoolyard (for example, perhaps the site was transformed from desert to agricultural field in 1935; then in 1975 the school was built)?

· What kind of vegetation was planted before and after the school was built?

· Have parts of the schoolyard changed from the original design?

· If so, why were the changes made?

Site Management

Why should you look at how your schoolyard is used and maintained? We often forget that humans play an important role in ecosystems, particularly urban ones. For example, people disturb ecosystems by simple things such as mowing the grass. These disturbances can create changes in the plant and animal communities. To conduct a study in your schoolyard, you need to build partnerships with the people responsible for maintaining the property.

Your answers to the following questions will be useful as you decide when and where to collect data. For example, you will want to schedule data collection at times when pesticides are not being sprayed. The answers will also be useful when you get to the point of interpreting data. Your teacher will help you determine the format of your Site Management report.

As you develop your school’s site management report, you may want to consider the following questions:

· How is the schoolyard used?

· Who takes care of the schoolyard?

· Describe the maintenance schedule. How often is the grass watered and mowed? How often are herbicides/pesticides used? What else do school workers do to manage the schoolyard?

· Which teachers currently use the schoolyard for class projects (find out when and how often)?

· What areas do students use at recess and/or breaks? How do the staff and faculty use part of the schoolyard during their breaks?

· Which areas are used more during specific times of the school year (for example, are the shadier parts used mostly when it is hot during fall and spring)? What are those areas used for? Does anything happen differently in different seasons, and if so, how and what (for example, if you live in a region that receives snow, what area gets plowed or shoveled, and where do they put the snow)?

· What after-school activities take place in the schoolyard?

· How is the schoolyard used over the school vacations?

Habitat Description

In addition to mapping a site and determining its history and management, scientists need to describe the habitat of a particular area they are studying. In the arthropod and bird activities, you will choose a few areas in your schoolyard to monitor these animals. After you choose the monitoring sites, you should describe the habitats as follows:

For the arthropod protocol, you should do a habitat description for a 5 meter by 5 meter area around each individual pit trap. If your class will be monitoring birds, you should describe the habitat present within each 20 meter radius point count area. Your teacher will give you a Habitat Description worksheet where you can write the answers to the following questions.
Record the approximate percent of the ground that is covered by each of the following categories. Include any notes you think might be useful as you record the percent of ground covered (for example, names of plants, type of buildings).

· Gravel or soil

· Lawn

· All other vegetation

o Vegetation with a height of 15 cm to 1.5 m.

o Vegetation over 1.5 m (trees). Try to estimate the percent that is shaded by the tree trunk, branches, and leaves, not just the area of the trunk.

· Pavement or building

Record any other notes about your site. For example, is there a stream running through it? Are there any dead trees?

Ground Arthropod Protocol

You are undoubtedly familiar with insects, such as ants, butterflies, beetles, bees, and flies. Similarly, you are likely familiar with arachnids, such as spiders, ticks, and scorpions. Together these two classes of organisms form a larger group, or phylum, called arthropods.

Scientists search for characteristics that allow us to separate organisms into groups. One important characteristic of arthropods is that they have bodies developed into different segments, like the head and abdomen of spiders, or the head, thorax, and abdomen of insects. Another important characteristic of arthropods is that they do not have an internal skeleton like birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and mammals. Instead, they have a hard shell or skeleton on the outside of their bodies called an exoskeleton.

Arthropods are important components of any food web. In a single collection you might find arthropods that are decomposers, herbivores, predators, and parasites. Furthermore, because they have short life cycles, arthropods respond quickly to disturbances (for example, mowing a lawn, clear-cutting, fire) and changes in soil and vegetation. Thus, if you monitor ground arthropods at your schoolyard, you can see how they react to disturbance or change (such as new construction next to your school). We can also compare arthropod populations in areas with different land uses to get an idea of how human activities affect biological diversity. For example, students in the Ecology Explorers program of the Central Arizona - Phoenix LTER are comparing data they collect on arthropod populations in schoolyards to similar data collected by scientists in desert, residential, industrial, and farm ecosystems. Within your schoolyard, you may want to monitor arthropod populations in grass, gardens, gravel or dirt areas, and compost piles or other areas where yard waste are left to decompose.

Observing and recording what is present in your ecosystem is the first step in many long-term ecological studies. Using the protocol below, you will observe and record the arthropods collected in your schoolyard. Once you have learned how to trap, observe, and identify insects, you may want to design some comparative studies: for example, you could compare arthropod populations in different habitats. You or your class might come up with your own questions to guide your investigations. You might want to look at the LTER websites, particularly the Central Arizona-Phoenix site (http://caplter.asu.edu/) to get some ideas about possible questions to investigate. Consider making this a long-term study – perhaps you will monitor arthropods every month during the entire school year, or perhaps you will set up the study so that students in next year’s class can continue your monitoring efforts.

Materials

Bulb planter
Metric measuring tape
Metric ruler
Tweezers
Magnifying glass
16-ounce Solo cups and lids
Pencils
Data sheets
Ziploc bags
Cooler with blue ice (If you have a freezer in which to store samples, you will only use the cooler when you are outside. If you do not have a freezer or you do not want to put your samples in it, then be sure to check the ice periodically.)

Procedure

1. Use pit traps to collect arthropods once a month. The pit traps consist of two 16-ounce Solo cups, one inside the other, buried in the ground so that the top of the cup is ever so slightly below the surface of the soil. (If the top of the cup is above the ground, the bugs will walk around your trap instead of into it.)

2. Use a bulb planter to dig 10 holes in a line, 5 meters apart. If the area in your schoolyard is not long enough for this kind of arrangement, use a grid pattern, but be sure to keep 5 meters between the traps. You may want to set up a line (or grid) in several different areas in your schoolyard. And be sure to indicate the arrangement on your data sheet. Do not worry if the line goes from lawn to shrubs or by trees. Assign a number to each trap. For example, perhaps you are collecting 10 samples from the northeast area and 10 others from the west end of the schoolyard at Jone’s Middle School. You could name the first ten traps Jone’s NE1 through Jone’s NE10 and the second ten traps Jone’s W1 through Jone’s W10.

Place the pit traps (Solo cups) in the ground. Remember to use two cups.
If you live in an area where you are likely to have rain, cover the trap with a small piece of plywood. You can suspend the plywood over the cup using nails stuck into the ground.
Fill out the Habitat Description sheet once for each pit trap. Describe the habitat in the 5 meter by 5 meter area surrounding each trap. The trap should be located in the center of this 5 meter by 5 meter area.
Leave the traps alone for 72 hours. Why so long? Imagine the time it takes a bug to crawl 5 meters. To get a good idea of arthropod diversity, you need to give them time to fall in.
After 72 hours, empty the traps into Ziploc bags. Use a different bag for each trap (all arthropods collected in one trap are called a "sample") and include a label indicating the sample' s trap number, collection date and time, and names of collectors. To empty the pit trap, take the inside cup out of the second cup, leaving the second cup in the ground (to preserve the hole). Empty the contents of this cup into the Ziploc bag and replace it in the ground cup. Cover the cup with a plastic lid until the next collection (at least one month).
Once the sample is bagged, place it in the freezer or ice chest. This will kill any bugs that may have survived the fall into the cup. Leave the samples in the freezer to preserve the arthropods until you have finished identifying them. (As you are identifying the samples, you may decide to pin and display a collection of some of the larger arthropods.)
Use identification guides provided by your teacher to identify the insects to order. Should you be interested in identifying the insects to family, genus, or species, you may want to obtain a guide to local arthropods and, if possible, contact a nearby university or LTER site education coordinator for help. Alternatively, you can divide the insects into groups based on like characteristics and count the number of groups present in different habitats, even if you are not able to provide specific identifications. Record all data on the Arthropod Data worksheet.

Bird Protocol

Birds play important roles in many ecosystems. For example, birds eat seeds and eliminate them at other sites, thus helping spread plants to new locations. Birds are important predators of insects, and sometimes of small mammals, fish, and amphibians. The disappearance or appearance of particular bird species may reflect habitat changes. These changes could be related to pesticide use, cutting down forests to build houses and businesses, building new homes with lush gardens in the desert, and farmlands reverting back to forest. For those species that migrate in the winter, changes in what species are present may also reflect changes in their southern wintering grounds.

Whether you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area, you can monitor bird populations in different habitats, such as city parks, residential areas, and schoolyards. Students associated with the Ecology Explorers program of the Central Arizona - Phoenix LTER are monitoring bird populations in urban areas with different types of landscape plants. This information may help people living in Phoenix design landscapes that attract a wider variety of bird species.

For both the insect and bird activities, once you have learned how to identify the animals, you and your class should consider the design of your study. What are the goals of your study? Are you interested in long-term monitoring only, or would you like to experimentally manipulate part of your schoolyard?

For long-term monitoring, are you interested in what birds are in one type of habitat, or would you like to monitor several habitats? You may want to consider doing bird surveys in nearby parks if you have a small schoolyard. How long will your study last – one month, or many years? Why? How do your point counts change with varying weather conditions? If you will monitor populations over many years, how will you record your data and site descriptions so that students in next year’s class will be able to use them? Much of the work at LTER sites is focused on understanding long-term trends; this can only be done successfully by designing studies that are consistent over long periods of time.

If you and your class decide to do an experiment, how will you design it? How long should you monitor birds to get baseline data? Will it take one month, many months, or a year or more? If you change something in your schoolyard (for example, you could add a feeder or a bird bath, or you could plant shrubs or trees), what will you use as a reference (see Activity 3 for a discussion of controls and references)? How long will you need to fully understand how birds respond to your experimental treatment? Many LTER experiments are designed to examine effects of a treatment over many years – how can you design your experiment so that future students can monitor responses?

Materials

Meter Sticks
String
Location Markers
Timer
Binoculars (useful, but not necessary)
Data Sheets

Procedure

Ecologists use “point counts” as one method for surveying birds. In a point count, one person counts all the birds located within a circle with a radius of 20 meters for 10 minutes. When conducting a point count you will record data on the “Bird Data Sheet.” Follow these steps before you actually do a point count survey:

Decide on one or more areas in your schoolyard to conduct the survey, such as on a lawn, near trees and bushes, near asphalt, etc. Position the sampling points in the different areas, avoiding the edge of the areas if possible. Consider having “replicates” – more than one sampling point per area. For example, consider having two or more point locations near trees, two or more near asphalt, etc. Scientists use replicates to avoid the possibility that any one sample might not represent a true picture of what is going on. Label the sampling locations and mark them on a copy of your schoolyard map.
Mark out a circle with a 20-meter radius at each of the points you intend to survey. Make sure there are no large obstructions within the circle. For example, if a block wall were near the center of the circle you might not be able to see over it to count birds on the other side. You could position the circle so the block wall was near the perimeter of the circle. If you do not have enough space for a 20-meter radius circle, note the radius of the point count study area on the data sheet.
Fill out the Habitat Description worksheet once for each individual 20 meter radius point count.
Become familiar with the most common bird species in your area. Your school library may have a bird guidebook or you may be able to find something on the web. You may even be able to contact a local birdwatcher to help you.
Decide on a time of day to do the survey and always do it at the same time of day. The best time of day is in the early morning (before 9:30 am), but if several classes are sampling throughout the day, you can see if time of day affects the results.
Census the point twice per week for at least four consecutive weeks.
Only one person should count the birds in any one point count (nobody else should help locate birds). This person will count all the birds within the survey area for ten minutes. Other students can help by keeping time and recording the counts on the data sheet.
Use the data sheet to record the total number of individuals of each species that you have seen in ten minutes. Count each bird only once.

Activity 5

Exploring Long-term Research: Your Community

Background

Long before the LTER network was created, many scientists were already conducting long-term studies. Long-term research often examines ecosystem processes over a large geographic area – an area that is far too big for a single scientist to cover. That’s why researchers have sometimes relied on informal networks of ordinary people – so-called “citizen scientists” – to help collect data over large areas and at regular intervals.

One example is a study of sea-surface temperature at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. The study started back in 1916 when a scientist at Scripps had the idea of collecting a bucket of water off the end of the Scripps dock every week to measure such things as water temperature and salinity. Over the years, Scripps scientists recruited people in other California coastal areas to do the same thing. Librarians, high school science teachers, and many other people contributed information to the study. Now Scripps has a remarkable data set that documents changes in California’s coastal waters over many decades.

The people who collected buckets of water for the sea-surface study are just one example of ordinary people helping to collect data for a long-term study. In this activity, you will identify people in your own community who are involved in “citizen science.” You may also examine the data they have been collecting to look for short-term and long-term trends.

What sorts of citizen science projects are happening in your area? In many places, people are involved in the study of birds. For example, bird watchers have been taking part in the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count for over a century. Called “the oldest and largest wildlife survey in the world," the Christmas Bird County was launched in 1900 as an alternative to traditional New Year’s Day hunting parties. Today, bird watchers conduct their counts at more than 1,500 sites in North America. This one-day count gives scientists an indication of the abundance of winter birds.

Other North American bird watchers help to conduct the spring Breeding Bird Survey, which was launched in 1966. This survey provides information about changes in bird populations across the continent. The participants go out on a day in June to look and listen for birds along 3,500 different roadside “routes.”

Bird studies are not the only field in which you are likely to identify citizen-based long-term research efforts. Your local science museum or nature center may keep records on the timing of other natural phenomena: for example, when the first spring wildflowers appear, when local trees get their first leaves, or the date on which spring peepers are first heard. The local management authority for a dam or reservoir may keep records of the date of “ice-out” in spring. Your state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife or Department of Environmental Conservation may keep records of when fish return to spawning streams.

Note to Teachers

This is an open-ended activity that students can best conduct outside of class. Students may work alone, in pairs, or in small groups. The Internet is an excellent resource for conducting the necessary research, but students may also get a good amount of information simply by consulting local phone directories or members of their communities.

Objectives

Students will:

Discover citizen science projects being conducted in their communities

Develop an understanding of the importance of communication between communities and

scientists

Learn how they can contribute to scientific research

Examine datasets gathered in their communities

National Science Education Standards Covered:

Science as Inquiry – Development of:

Understandings about scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Science and Technology – Development of:

Understandings about science and technology (5-8 & 9-12)

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Development of an understanding of:

Science and technology in society (5-8)

Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges (9-12)

History and Nature of Science – Development of an understanding of:

Nature of science (5-8)

Nature of scientific knowledge (9-12)

Procedures

In this activity, you will research citizen science projects in your community. You will consult local phone directories, the Internet, and members of your community to determine what types of citizen science might be going on near your school. You can then try to locate and look for trends in data gathered by these citizen scientists. Several places to start are presented below.

Local Bird Club

One option for this activity is to identify a local bird club and find out if any members participate in the Christmas Bird Count or Breeding Bird Survey. To see if there is a local Audubon bird club in your area, check the National Audubon Society website http://www.audubon.org/. The American Birding Association website http://www.americanbirding.org/ may also list some local bird clubs or resources. Ask to see data for your local area. Choose two or three bird species of interest and look for trends in the data. Compare these data to changing local, national, and global climate patterns. Use some of the resources described in Activity 4 to obtain aerial photographs and use these photos to compare changes in land use to changes in bird populations.

Breeding Bird Survey

An alternative to calling up birders at your local bird club is getting data off the Breeding Bird Survey website. For general information, go to: http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/bbs.html. To select your state and see the routes that were surveyed, go to
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/trend/rtehtm98a.html. Try clicking on the regional trend maps.

Christmas Bird Count

The home page for data collected by the Christmas Bird Count participants is http://www.birdsource.org/cbc/. Data are collected from areas known as “count circles.” To identify a “count circle” near your school, click on the “CBC Database Online” icon on the Christmas Bird Count home page (or go to http://birdsource.tc.cornell.edu/cbcdata/). You’ll see an entry form. In the space labeled “Find a Circle ID,” enter your state or province. Then, from the list of circle IDs provided, choose the one nearest your school and enter it at the top of the form, along with other information as requested.

Local nature centers or museums

Consult your local phone book for nature centers or museums that may be located in or near your community. Ask other teachers in your school. Your local conservation commission, state or county park, or land trust may be able to provide some leads.

State Agencies

Look up your State’s Department of Natural Resources, Water Resources, Fish and Game, Environmental Conservation, etc. Visit their website and follow “science,” “education,” or similar links. Contact the agency directly and inquire about local or statewide citizen science programs.

Local Universities and Colleges

Ask your teacher for the name of local colleges and universities, and contact outreach coordinators or professors in a science department that interests you (for example, biology, natural resources, astronomy, etc).

Watershed Networks and Lake Associations

Monitoring aquatic insects and water chemistry is a popular citizen science activity. There may a local watershed monitoring effort coordinated by a nearby school, town government, or watershed or lake association.

Other organizations and programs on the web

Monarch Larval Monitoring Project, at the University of Minnesota (http://www.monarchlab.umn.edu/MP/mp.html)
Frogwatch USA, part of the US Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (http://www.mp2-pwrc.usgs.gov/frogwatch/)
Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology (http://birds.cornell.edu/)
Consider searching the term, “Citizen Science”

Suggestions for Further Study

Become involved!

Become a participant in one of the citizen science programs you have discovered in this activity. You may consider involving your class, or perhaps your family or friends.

Activity 6

The Future of Long-term Research

Background

In the preceding activities you learned about the network of LTER sites that has been established throughout the United States and abroad, and about how these sites are designed to investigate five core LTER research questions. You also examined original data collected at a number of different LTER sites to investigate the importance of long-term research in understanding of ecosystem processes. In this final activity, you will use what you have learned to develop a proposal for a new Long Term Ecological Research site – a site that could be situated on your school grounds.

Your class will be divided into several teams. Each team will role-play a group of scientists at one of several universities in your area who are developing and submitting a new LTER site proposal for consideration by the National Science Foundation. You will decide what types of ecological questions you and your teammates hope to answer with your study. Then you will develop procedures for a study to answer those questions. Finally, you will draw up a list of the materials you would need to carry out your research.

After your team develops a proposal, you will put together an oral or a poster presentation of your ideas. You will make your presentation at a classroom mock conference where your teacher and/or other invited guests will act as members of a National Science Foundation review panel. This panel will later provide you with written feedback on your proposal. Next, you will have an opportunity to revise and resubmit your proposals. Finally, the review panel will announce which projects have been selected for funding and why.

One good model for schoolyard LTER investigations is the research on grassland and old-field plots being done at the Cedar Creek LTER site. This kind of work might be adapted for grassy plots on school grounds. You could start your proposal by visiting the Cedar Creek or other LTER website to get some ideas for research projects. Then, you should survey your school grounds to identify areas and habitat that could serve as a site for research plots. Finally, you will develop some research questions that could be answered at your site and write up your proposal. The process you will be following, from finding out what has been done, to making observations of your site, to writing up a proposal, is similar to the process scientists use when trying to obtain funding for their research. Similarly, the use of a panel of “expert” scientists to review proposals and make decisions about what gets funded is patterned after the procedure that the National Science Foundation uses to make decisions about what research gets funded.

Note to Teachers

In this activity, your students will learn how other scientists pose questions about ecosystem processes and devise research plans that will help answer those questions. This activity provides students with an opportunity to ask – and perhaps answer – their own research questions. You will need to break your class into teams of three or four, with each team consisting of scientists proposing a new LTER site. In the real world, these types of proposals would be submitted to the National Science Foundation to be reviewed by several scientists knowledgeable about ecosystem science. You can create a mock National Science Foundation review panel using other students or teachers or even a scientist from a nearby university or LTER site. Most LTER scientists have been involved in many different aspects of the grant writing and review process and would add a great deal of knowledge and expertise to this activity.

This activity can even go a step further – with permission from school administrators, you might want to actually establish some long-term research plots at your school. A long-term research site right on school grounds would be a valuable resource for students of all ages. Activities tailored to different age levels could complement and supplement the traditional laboratory and field experiences that most science classes already offer. You may also want to develop the Bird and Arthropod activities in Activity 4 into long-term schoolyard research endeavors.

Part A – Identifying a Research Question

Your students should be familiar with the types of research going on at LTER sites. If they have conducted several of the activities in this manual, they should have this knowledge. We have also provided two handouts you may want to pass out to the students: Possible Research Ideas and National Science Foundation Proposal Review Criteria. The NSF Review Criteria can be found at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2001/nsf012a/start.html. After your students are familiar with this background information, take them on a walking tour of your school grounds to help them look for possible LTER study sites. If your class has already participated in Activity 4, you may want to consider using those sites. You could conduct the walking tour as a sort of field trip during class, or students could do it before or after school or during a study hall.

In this section students are asked to develop research questions for the LTER proposal. You might want to review experimental design with your students, making sure to emphasize the importance of both monitoring and field experiments and the need for both reference and treatment plots in field experiments. Most LTER proposals include many questions. This activity calls for your students to develop one or two short- and long-term questions, though you should feel free to change this number if you think it would be more appropriate for your class.

Part B – Drafting a proposal

The procedure for students specifies the different sections that should be included in the proposal (step 5). Students may also want to look at some real LTER proposals on-line. Although they should be able to get an idea of the outline or sections of the proposal (e.g., research objectives, methods), the language describing specific procedures will likely be too technical for high school students.

Whereas actual LTER proposals have budgets associated with them, we did not include budget planning in this activity. (If you are presenting the proposal for actual funding, you will need to add this step.)

Part C – The Peer Review Process

Proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation are generally sent to several reviewers who are typically doing research similar to that being proposed. These reviewers then send the National Science Foundation written comments about the proposal, with very specific comments and their thoughts on whether or not the proposal should be funded. This is referred to as the outside review process. The National Science Foundation then convenes a panel of experts to review all the proposals in a specific area (e.g., all LTER proposals in any one year). The panel again makes comments on the quality of the proposed research, and ranks the proposals in terms of funding priority. Together, the outside and panel reviews constitute what is referred to as “Peer Review” of research proposals. Finally, the National Science Foundation program officer makes a decision on what should be funded, drawing on the outside and panel reviews. In this activity, you – and any guests you choose to invite – will act as these peer reviewers. You can have students present their proposals in writing (as would be the case with the National Science Foundation) or to make it more interesting and to promote discussion, you can have them present their proposals orally in addition to in writing. After proposals have been presented, you and your reviewers should give each team written comments on their proposal. Ask questions about the proposal, comment on its strong and weak points, and indicate what the team would need to do to submit a proposal that would be more likely to receive funding.

You can have the students resubmit the proposals taking into account the reviewers’ comments. After you – and others on the panel – have reviewed the final rewritten proposals, you should present a final set of written comments indicating why the proposal was or was not funded. You may choose to present some or all of these comments verbally to your class followed by a general discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the proposals. You and your students may also be interested in learning more about the grant submission process by visiting the NSF’s website at http://www.nsf.gov/

Objectives

Students will:

Learn about submitting an LTER grant proposal to the National Science Foundation

Design a proposal for a new LTER site

Develop ecological research questions they could study in their schoolyard

Gain experience working as a team of “scientists”

National Science Education Standards Covered:

Science as Inquiry – Development of:

Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Understandings about scientific inquiry (5-8 & 9-12)

Life Sciences - Development of an understanding of:

Populations and Ecosystems (5-8)

Interdependence of organisms (9-12)

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Development of an understanding of:

Science and technology in society (5-8)

Environmental Quality (9-12)

Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges (9-12)

History and Nature of Science – Development of an understanding of:

Nature of science (5-8)

Science as a human endeavor (9-12)

Nature of scientific knowledge (9-12)

Activity 6: The Future of Long-Term Research

Student Handout: Possible Research Ideas

Background

In this activity you and your team members will be developing an LTER site research proposal. Of the many components of such a proposal, the most important one is: what research questions will you address at your new site? You may want to consider visiting the Cedar Creek LTER website (http://www.lter.umn.edu/) to look for ideas, as many of the research questions being addressed at that grassland and “old-field” (areas that used to be farm fields) site could be adapted to a schoolyard. Additionally, we have provided some example questions below. After reading through these ideas, you should develop several research questions of your own. Your teacher will indicate if you should do this as a class or individually, and will indicate how many questions you should develop.

Research Question Ideas:

How does mowing affect what types of plants are present, and how does it affect how quickly they grow? How does mowing affect what types of insects are present? How do the plants and/or insects that were present before an area was mowed (that is, when it was a field) differ from those that are present after an area was mowed?
How does fertilization affect how quickly plants grow? How does it affect what plants grow in your schoolyard (that is, after fertilization are more or less plants present)? How does fertilization affect what insects are present in your schoolyard? What happens to the plants and insects if fertilization is stopped?
How do the shady areas of your schoolyard differ from the sunny areas? Are there differences in what types of plants or animals (for example, birds, arthropods) are present in both areas?
How does runoff (rain that falls and then flows over land) from parking lots and other paved areas in your schoolyard affect non-paved areas? Do large storms cause any flooding, and if so, how does this affect plants in your schoolyard? Do areas that have a lot of runoff have different types of plants than areas with no runoff?

Activity 6: The Future of Long-Term Research

Student Handout: National Science Foundation Proposal Review Criteria

The National Science Foundation reviews a great deal of research proposals, including those such as the ones you and your team are developing. In 1997 the NSF devised very broad, general criteria by which all proposals are judged. You should refer to these criteria, listed below, as you develop your proposal.

What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?

How important is the proposed activity to advancing knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields? How well qualified is the proposer (individual or team) to conduct the project? (If appropriate, the reviewer will comment on the quality of prior work.) To what extent does the proposed activity suggest and explore creative and original concepts? How well conceived and organized is the proposed activity? Is there sufficient access to resources?

What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?

How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning? How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)? To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships? Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding? What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

Principal Investigators should address the following elements in their proposal to provide reviewers with the information neces

Funding for this manual was provided by the National Science Foundation.

Students will:

Could urbanization, not climate change, cause a shift in ice-out dates?

How might shorter or longer periods of ice cover affect animals or plants in the lake?

Science and Politics

Effects of El Niño on ice-out years

Tracking changing CO2 levels and average temperatures

Long-term ice and climatic data on other lakes

Part A – Introduction to the LTER Network

Part B – Using the Internet to investigate LTER sites

Visiting a site

Meeting a scientist

Students will:

Students will:

Mapping Your Schoolyard

Students will:

Local Bird Club

Breeding Bird Survey

Christmas Bird Count

Local nature centers or museums

State Agencies

Local Universities and Colleges

Watershed Networks and Lake Associations

Part A – Identifying a Research Question

Part B – Drafting a proposal

Part C – The Peer Review Process

Students will:

Research Question Ideas:

What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?

What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?

Tracking changing CO₂ levels and average temperatures