Webinar: Using Tree-Ring Research to Develop Critical Scientific Thinking Skills in Undergraduate Students

Thursday, November 2, 2017

12:00 pm PT | 1:00 pm MT | 2:00 pm CT | 3:00 pm ET

Presenter: Dr. Nicole Davi (William Paterson University & Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory)

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Resources, including presentation slides and the Screencast recording after the webinar

Summary

Learn about how dendrochronologists travel to remote regions of the world in search of slow growing, long-lived trees that record the environmental conditions where they live year-by-year in their growth rings. By studying these trees, scientists learn about environments and climates, hundreds-to-thousands of years in the past. For example, scientists have used trees from such sites to reconstruct temperature variability of the past two thousand years in the Northern Hemisphere, to place exact calendar dates on ancestral pueblos in the U.S. Southwest and to reconstruct streamflow estimates for the U.S. Colorado River. Because the basic premise of dendrochronology is so intuitive, tree-ring research provides a wonderful window into how scientists work and advance knowledge about the climate of the past.

Through the use of digital technology, we present five publically available labs, geared for community college and undergraduate instructors and their students, that tap into the excitement of launching an expedition while introducing students to groundbreaking tree-ring studies that have had important societal impact. Through Tree-Ring Expeditions (TREX), you will have the opportunity to explore tree-ring research sites, evaluate tree-ring cores, and learn about some of the resources and datasets tree-ring scientists depend on to do their research.

Goals

At the end of this webinar, participants will have:

  • an overview of the five labs, instructor resources, assessments, and highlights.
  • the opportunity to hear from and ask questions of the author, an active dendrochronologist.

Logistics

Time - 12:00 pm PT | 1:00 pm MT | 2:00 pm CT | 3:00 pm ET
Duration - 1 hour
Format - Online web presentation via Adobe Connect web conference software with questions and discussion. Go to the webinar technology page for information on using Adobe Connect. Detailed instructions for joining the webinar will be emailed to registered participants one day prior to the webinar.
Registration deadline - Tuesday, October 31.
Preparation - There is no advance preparation required for this webinar.

Please email Mitchell Awalt (mawalt@carleton.edu) if you have any technical questions about this event.

Presenter

Dr. Nicole Davi, Department of Environmental Science, William Paterson University & Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Tentative Program

  1. Welcome and introductory remarks
  2. Webinar presentation
  3. Reflections by participants
  4. Synthetic remarks
  5. Opportunities for further interaction
  6. Webinar Evaluation

Resources

Click to watch the webinar screencast (MP4 Video 616.8MB Nov6 17).