Allie Dennis

Blk.2
9/28/12

Sampling trees
A forest is a large area of land where trees and plants grow together. It
is a good habitat for animals to live in. The forest creates homes and provides
plenty of food for animals that live in the forest. Sampling is when you go to
the edges or the middle of the forest and sample trees. When you sample you
are sampling the trees and determining how much space that kind of tree
uses. You are seeing how different the trees change from the edge of the
forest to the middle of the forest. When the class sampled trees we had a ten
meter rope with marks for every one meter. To sample we had to lay out the
ten meter rope across the area we were measuring. When we measured we
were looking to see how much of a type of tree wood go over the rope. Some
applications for forest sampling would be logging, fire wood, building a house
or building furniture. The wood that is gathered from the trees is mostly used
by humans. A lot of trees have been cut down so that humans can use the
wood but when humans get wood, the animals lose their homes. On the
other hand it can be good for the animals and their environment because
when you cut down large growth it gives the opportunity for new growth to
grow and help feed and support different kinds of wild life. In the forest we
have trees such as, the Quaking Aspen, Birch, Pine, Maple, Oak, Spruce
Hemlock and many more. The Red Maple and the Quaking Aspen were the
two most common trees in our data. The tree composition changes as you go
from the edge of the forest towards the middle because all the trees receive
and need different amounts of sunlight. The weather and the environment
also affect the amount of trees that grow in a certain area.
Hypothesis:
In our forest I think we have trees like, the Quaking Aspen, Birch, Pine,
Maple and Spruce.

Materials:

A ten meter long rope

Clipboard

4 papers

A writing utensil

Tape

Procedure:
1. Get a clipboard, paper and a writing utensil.
2. Get a 10m rope.
3. Mark the 10 meter rope every meter with tape.
4. Go into the forest.
5. Lay the rope down so its straight.
6. Observe the trees around it.
7. Write down the types of trees that hang over or are on the rope.
8. Estimate the how much of the tree is hanging over it or on the rope.
9. Record all the trees that hang over the rope.
10.Once all the trees from that section have been recorded, move further
in the forest in a different spot.
11.Continue the procedure until its been done 4 times and the papers are
filled.
Conclusion:
Our results showed that we had recorded ten different types of trees.
We had more Red Maple trees than any other kind of tree. Our results were
not completely accurate because when we were sampling, we estimated how
much of the tree was over the rope. It wasnt completely accurate
information. We didnt have any huge errors but we did have a few because
we named a couple of our trees wrong. Other than that we didnt have any
errors.