Exploring Forests Around the World: A Dynamic Learning Experience for Middle and High School Students - Alicia Carlson

Audience

Middle school and high school

Time

Approximately 2 class periods: one for reading the Natural Inquirer inquiry and reviewing images and charts, and one for using the GLOBE resources.

• Day 1: Dive into The World’s Forests 2 inquiry, exploring images and data.
• Day 2: Apply your learning with GLOBE resources for hands-on discovery.

Materials

• The World’s Forests 2 (pdf), Inquiry 1
• Earth System Poster learning activities (pdf)
• Analyzing Global Patterns with the Earth System Satellite Images (see text for instructions)
• Optional: GLOBE Protocols
  • Precipitation
  • Tree Height
  • Land Cover Classification

What kinds of forests grow on Earth and where are they found?

 The world’s forests are intricate ecosystems that play a vital role in our planet’s health. Through this activity, your students will:

• Read informational texts.
• Analyze captivating data, charts, and images.
• Investigate local environments to draw meaningful conclusions.

Note: Have students read the opening sections of The World’s Forests 2 (pdf) to get grounded in the global importance of forests and trees.

What’s Inside The World’s Forests 2, Inquiry 1

The first inquiry in The World’s Forests 2, on pages 12 to 18, asks “What kinds of forests grow on Earth and where are they found?” Through this section, your students will learn about factors that contribute to the types of forests found in different regions of the world. Topics in this inquiry include climate, forest types, latitude, elevation, and rainfall.

The text is accompanied by many graphics, images, and charts. You will find the lesson plan for this inquiry, starting on page 50, as a useful guide. The lesson plan provides you with prompts and guiding questions to help students make comparisons, define vocabulary, and have discussions on the content.

GLOBE Resources

Discover the Earth System Poster Learning Activities. These activities bring global environmental data to life, helping students connect local observations to global patterns.

First release in 2007, GLOBE’s Earth System Poster and learning activities were developed to help students understand changes to environmental factors measured locally, regionally, and globally and that connections can be observed between different environmental factors. This GLOBE resource is one of my personal favorites!

[Learn more about GLOBE’s Earth System Science Posters; the first poster used data from 1987.]

The topics in Inquiry 1 can be further explored through Activities 1 and 2 in the Earth System Poster learning activities (pdf).

My NASA Data updated the images for the Earth System Poster learning activities. They provide options for images from seven years of data (link is below).

Pro Tip

To complete this activity, I suggest that you download images from 2013, the year closest to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report. This will help students become familiar with the maps in Inquiry 1 and with understanding changes to global vegetation over one year.

• Visit the My NASA Data page Analyzing Global Patterns with the Earth System Satellite Images.
• Scroll down the page to “2013 Earth System Satellite Images” and click the “Global” link.
• A Google Slides page opens. Click the “Make a Copy” button to save a copy of the “2013 Earth System Satellite Images-Global” slide deck to your Google Drive.
• Open the slide deck and scroll to slide number 37 to find the series of six Vegetation slides.
• Follow the instructions in the Earth System Poster learning Activities 1 and 2 (link is above). Activity 1 has groups of students look at one image to become familiar with the image and find patterns. Activity 2 has groups of students explore annual changes in one parameter. [Note: you can use slides for additional parameters, such as precipitation, for Activity 2.]

Optional: Extended Learning

GLOBE Protocols

To extend their learning even further, students can study their local ecosystem using GLOBE measurement protocols most related to Inquiry 1.

• The Precipitation protocol will help students learn about the amount of rainfall and snowfall in their location.
• The Tree Height protocol is used to help students identify species and measure vegetation to classify land cover in their location. The Tree height protocol can be found within the Biometry protocol (pdf) or by using the Tree Height tool in the GLOBE Observer app.
• The Land Cover Classification protocol is used to determine the major land cover type by observing vegetation and other features. You can choose to use the Land cover classification protocol (pdf) or use the Land Cover tool in the GLOBE Observer app.

Join GLOBE Campaigns: Engage in Real-World Research!

GLOBE hosts regional and global data collection campaigns on a variety of topics seasonally and throughout the year. This can be a wonderful experience for students as they participate in these collaborative campaigns to help us learn more about the Earth’s systems.

• The North American Phenology Campaign provides students with two opportunities to observe changes in tree leaves during fall (leaf green-down) and spring (budburst and leaf green-up).

Still Need to Be GLOBE Trained?

Take advantage of free GLOBE eTraining modules to master each protocol.

• Precipitation eTraining (there are two: one for rainfall and one for snowfall) with Introduction to Atmosphere eTraining, all found on the Atmosphere training page.
• Tree Height eTraining with Introduction to Biosphere eTraining, both found on the Biosphere training page.
• Land Cover eTraining with Introduction to Biosphere eTraining, both found on the Biosphere training page. [Note: you only need to do the Introduction to Biosphere training once! So, if you do both tree height and land cover eTrainings, just do the Biosphere eTraining one time.]

Visit the GLOBE Protocol eTraining page for more information about these trainings.

Upload Your Data to the GLOBE Database

Celebrate your students’ hard work by contributing their research to a global database with over 30 years of environmental data. GLOBE data is collected by GLOBE students, educators, and citizen scientists. Learn more about GLOBE Data Entry.

Up Next

After completing Inquiry 1, continue on to Inquiry 2 to learn about biodiversity and the world’s forests.

Acknowledgement: This material is based upon work supported by USDA Forest Service Eastern Region (Agreement no. 20-PA-11090100-026). Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USDA Forest Service.

This blog post is part of the   GLOBE and the Natural Inquirer Crosswalk Project . Other blog posts are available on the   U.S. GLOBE Teacher Resources page .

Natural Inquirer issues can be downloaded, and classroom sets of many issues can be ordered from their website. Find the complete list of issues available and instructions for ordering on the  Natural Inquirer website .