Student Research Reports
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NATURAL ENERGY AROUND US: A study of movement of energy in natural ecosystems surrounding Sammuli Holiday Village
Organization(s):Estonian Learning Expedition
Country:Estonia
Student(s):Sofia Bernadska, Teele Piirimäe, Maret Mesi, Ilona Fjodorova, Markus Lambing, Kerttu Vipper
Grade Level:Secondary School (grades 9-12, ages 14-18)
GLOBE Educator(s):Ülle Kikas
Contributors:Riina Hopp
Tatjana Sedova
Laura Altin
Johanna Raudsepp
Report Type(s):International Virtual Science Symposium Report
Protocols:Air Temperature, Clouds, Surface Temperature, Biometry (including Tree Height), Carbon Cycle, Land Cover Classification, Soil Temperature
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Language(s):English
Date Submitted:02/25/2021
Energy surrounds us. It is able to persist inside animate and inanimate objects. This report resumes an expedition of GLOBE students, related to the study of energy accumulated and moving in nature. This topic is important as it allows us to learn more about possible renewable energy sources. Mankind faced this problem when it realized that the energy sources that we now use are exhaustive. At the moment, humanity requires a huge amount of energy consumed for daily and extremely important needs.
The study was performed during the GLOBE Estonia Learning Expedition in August 2021. Members of our team were GLOBE students of two Estonian schools. Our team decided to study in detail the amount of energy around us during expedition day. We have collected data about biomass and thermal energy in natural ecosystems, performed data analysis and summarised the obtained measurement results.
We’ve discovered that the energy stored in trees per a square meter of forest is about 30-50 times higher than the energy stored in grass biomass growing in a square meter. A tree can store more energy in itself than a grass, since trees live longer than herbs.
We’ve also discovered that different spheres of the Earth have different temperatures. Distribution of higher and lower temperatures depended on site characteristics, time of day and atmospheric conditions. Therefore, heat can move between soil, ground cover and air in various directions.