Tree Rings: Counting the Years of Global Warming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqicp4PvHrY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqicp4PvHrY
Worksyn Productions
Video length: 7:53 min.
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Topics
Grade Level
Climate Literacy
About Teaching Climate Literacy
3a 
3aIndividual organisms survive within specific ranges of temperature, precipitation, humidity, and sunlight. Organisms exposed to climate conditions outside their normal range must adapt or migrate, or they will perish.
Other materials addressing 3a
Based on evidence from tree rings, other natural records, and scientific observations made around the world, Earth’s average temperature is now warmer than it has been for at least the past 1,300 years. Average temperatures have increased markedly in the past 50 years, especially in the North Polar Region.
Other materials addressing 4e
Environmental observations are the foundation for understanding the climate system. From the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the Sun, instruments on weather stations, buoys, satellites, and other platforms collect climate data. To learn about past climates, scientists use natural records, such as tree rings, ice cores, and sedimentary layers. Historical observations, such as native knowledge and personal journals, also document past climate change.
Other materials addressing 5b
Benchmarks for Science Literacy
Learn more about the Benchmarks
Scientific investigations usually involve the collection of relevant data, the use of logical reasoning, and the application of imagination in devising hypotheses and explanations to make sense of the collected data.
The world contains a wide diversity of physical conditions, which creates a wide variety of environments: freshwater, marine, forest, desert, grassland, mountain, and others. In any particular environment, the growth and survival of organisms depend on the physical conditions
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Teaching Tips | Science | Pedagogy |
Technical Details
Teaching Tips
- This video could be used in a variety of curricula unit of study including climate, plants and forests, forest ecosystems, etc.
- Because it shows a female lead researcher and male graduate students collecting in the field and bringing the cores back to the lab to analyze them, it allows students to go beyond just looking at paper copies of tree ring patterns.
- Video can complement other CLEAN selected resources: http://cleanet.org/clean/educational_resources/index.html?search_text=tree+ring&Search=search
About the Science
- Research opportunities found in tree rings that link trees in Yellowstone National park to the research community.
- Global climate change and tree rings, which offer a record that humans are fundamentally changing the Earth system.
- Comments from Expert Scientist: Tree ring research is low tech and easily approachable by educators and students at middle school through college levels.
- This well-produced video enhances that approachability by featuring senior scientist Lisa Graumlich, one of the most articulate dendroclimatologists in the world.
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