The Microenvironment Project: Featuring Phenology

This activity is designed to give students an opportunity to observe their school surroundings and study life through phenology. Students will learn to take descriptive notes of air temp, soil temp, sky conditions, leaf colorations, organism life living in or around the tree, etc. From these observations they will then learn to develop inquiry based questions that may or may not be answered as the year progresses. The final goal is for students to be able to assemble a well-developed paper that illustrates how phenology of their school and a specific tree changes through the seasons.

This year long project is based on field research surrounding the phenology of a specific tree within the vicinity of the school. Class size can range from 30-60 students (I have paired up with another teacher and have done this project) depending on the number of trees around your school. The project works best when students are in teams of 2 and only one team is allowed per tree. Sophomore biology is the best place I have found to conduct this year long project because sophomores take both Introduction to biology where they learn about interdependence and basic ecology and Biodiversity where they learn about tree's and micro-organisms.
15 minutes of class time is given every week, usually the same day of the week depending on the schedule, for students to observe and conduct their field research. Always let students know which day the field work will occur so that they come prepared with coats, boots, etc. On special weeks of study more time is given to students because the are asked to complete additional activities based on their tree depending on what is being studied in class, such as height and age of the tree.
Equipment is dependent on the teacher: things such as rulers, thermometers, hand lenses, string, precipitation gauges and journal sheets need to be provided.

This year long research project will provide hands-on inquiry learning of phenology around our school. Students will observe in detail the phenology of a deciduous tree and its microenvironment. Working with a homologous helper, they will choose a mature tree to study and make detailed notes and observations on a weekly basis. They will be expected to fill out weekly journal entry sheets and write a weekly summary of what is happening with their tree and/or its environment. Students will need to conduct specific activities each week along with creating pictorial documentation for reference in upcoming weeks. After completing specific journaling activities, they will then have to complete an individual evaluation of their surroundings and produce an inquiry based question about what they are seeing or what they may not know about yet their tree. Some of these questions will be answered easily in the upcoming weeks, some in future classroom study and some through computer research. All of these questions however will be answered in some way in their final paper.

I have used this activity as a semester project before and it does not give students enough time to develop questions that can be sufficiently answered in their papers. By completing it throughout the school year students get attached to the phenology they are observing and take better care of developing their end product. With this though teachers should note that 15 minutes is about as much time as I allow per week for journaling in the field, more than that and students get off task. On specific weeks more time is needed due to additional activities such as height or age of tree to be completed. This activity can only be done in a classroom with students who have enough discipline to complete the field work and return to the classroom to work on summaries and inquiry questions, or it could become out of control quickly.
I tend to pick the same day of the week to conduct the field work so that students know when to prepare for outside work and bring supplies to class, things such as coats, gloves, boots, etc without having to go to their lockers and waste field work time.
To insure students are staying on top of their project, I collect field journal sheets at mid-term and end of term (about every four weeks). During this collection time I look at and give suggestions to students on how organized and conducive their inquiry questions are to what they are observing. The first sets of journaling will need constructive help by the teacher to get the student on the correct track, but the quality of product will become apparent in the following weeks.
What I have added to the project due to the MnSTEP program is to have students focus for several weeks during specific weeks of study on the micro-organisms that live on or around their tree. They will be asked to locate, draw, quantify and identify several organisms that make up the microbiology and interdependence of the tree.

Students will be assessed based on a rubric of work completed at the end of the school year. Their final field project will be a collection of their journal entries, drawings, inquiry questions and answers, specialized activities and overall learning. Along the way, students will be handing in random journal entries (teacher choosing) to be corrected for completion and on-task field work productivity.

9-12 Minnesota Life Science Standards: Interdependence of Life. All standards will be addressed through this project.