Tree survey
Learning outcomes
- To understand more about habitats and ecosystems.
- To understand how everyday activities impact on the environment.
Resources required
A range of survey equipment will be identified by the pupils – teachers may wish to provide a selection and discuss their uses with the class.
Pupils might use the following identification guides:Procedure
- Explain that you are going to collect information about the trees in your school grounds/local area and find out about the wildlife that’s associated with them.
- What sorts of information should we collect?,
- How will we do this?
- What will we need to take with us?,
- What will we bring back?,
- How will we make sure that we don’t come to any harm/that we don’t cause harm to the biodiversity that we’re exploring?,
- What’s the point of this sort of survey – what could it tell us about the health of a habitat or particular species?,
- How would we know what’s happened to the biodiversity in the last/next 10 years?
- Why might this be important?
Group work
Make preparations in groups and then conduct the survey.
Plenary (whole class)
Discuss the pupils’ findings.
- How are you going to identify/find out more about that species?
- How are you going to present your findings?
Extension
‘The oak bears more things beside its fruit than any other tree’ – Theophrastus, Greek botanical writer, 300BC. Which species of tree hosts the greatest number of species in your area?
Evaluation
- Visit a tree on your own and jot down a few notes:
- What do you notice about the tree?
- What do you know about the tree?
- What else would you like to know about the tree?
Summary information
Age range: 5-14
Curriculum links: Science, Geography
Time needed: 40 minutes (first session)
Group size: 2 - 4
Setting: Outdoors
Key vocabulary: biodiversity, identification, species
Learning cycle: Motivating
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