In Dr. Ava Goodale’s Environmental Science Research Course at Deerfield Academy, high school students collect environmental data as volunteer scientists, analyze those data in a technical report, and create an interpretive writing piece that tells a story about their experience. The students featured in this series participated in Nature’s Notebook campaigns and were kind enough to share their interpretive writing pieces with us.
About Chuck
Chuck is a Senior at Deerfield Academy.
Redbud Phenology: A Communal Approach to Saving the Trees
The warm humidity turns to brisk dry air, 14 long hours of sunlight turns to a sparse eight, the nightly ritual of the cicadas buzzing hushes to a dead quiet, and the summer green fades to a withered, crisp brown– These signs of the changing season are a commonly shared sensory experience that underpins our understanding of time. The iconic changing of leaves pronounced in the rolling hills of New England serves to be the most common visual indicator of this shared experience and has shaped the heritage of our landscape. In addition to creating this place-based shared belonging and identity, these annual cycles are important for understanding change over time as our climate undergoes rapid changes.
With climate change posing such a detrimental threat to the well-being of humanity and earth, it is pivotal that we answer these questions and possess every piece of information possible regarding this threat in order to form a stronger defense against it. A way we can respond to this threat is through monitoring the stages in a tree’s annual cycle, known as phenology.
My classmates and I contributed to gathering this vital information by observing eastern redbud phenology in Western Massachusetts. We submitted our data to a citizen science network called the USA National Phenology Network. With a clipboard in hand, my classmates and I went outside to observe three eastern redbud trees on campus and their phenophases each week through the fall. This included the leaf color, leaf abundance, flower abundance, and fruit abundance. We noticed more yellow leaves as temperatures plummeted and eventually fewer leaves on each tree as the daylength diminished in November.
From this project I not only learned about these three specific trees but I learned about the importance of citizen science platforms. Specifically, I learned that Nature’s Notebook is a nationwide initiative to collect mass data on trees, but also all kinds of life. It is a public network in which you can upload your ecological observations in order to contribute to environmental scientific research and decision making. This information is valuable among scientists as it is a way to measure a plethora of environmental issues. One of which is climate change. By observing phenophase properties and providing a timeline of senescence, researchers are able to measure and determine the impacts of CO2 concentrations and temperature changing. Nature’s Notebook is the perfect platform to do just that and I highly encourage anyone with a deepset care for the environment to document and upload data regarding your nearby species.
I used to think the annual leaf cycles were simply a process of hibernation or even death for trees before the harsh New England winters. I thought that it was a one-dimensional, routine event and irregularities were simply due to the imperfection of nature. Much of that is still true but now I think that it is a complex, reactive process that unlocks information regarding environmental factors. It is a way to determine the effects of ecosystem changes that we would otherwise have no way to measure. I think of this process as the trees responding to what their environment gives them and maintaining their health in the midst of rapid ecological change.
It goes to show that the best way to offer a hand to the trees is to listen and become attuned to them. What are their leaves telling you? What about their flowers or fruits? This is what Nature’s Notebook is all about, and I highly recommend submitting your observations in order to form a more complete picture of what’s going on in the environmental world. Next time you take a walk, look around you, the ecology around you is responding to humanity, even if you don't think it’s possible. You may think that the best way to respond to climate change is to immediately take action and implement lifestyle changes and green alternatives to everything. However, I learned that you can also provide information and help researchers forge a call to action in order to boost the well-being of life on the planet.