Trees, Trees

I have spent the last two days cutting down trees, while simultaneously working on a project to enhance our "Tree Trek" class. So while I've been destroying ecosystems, I've also been learning about them. Quite an interesting dilemma. The reason for cutting down trees is actually incredibly ridiculous - one of the property owners on the mountain decided he wanted his view from his mountain-top house to be of the river down in the canyon, and of course there were pesky trees in the way. So he cut them all down. Unfortunately, the fallen trees landed directly across one of our most popular trails (called Billy Goat), so we had to head out with chainsaws and loppers to clear up the carnage. Quite a bit of a mess, and quite a lot of destruction, simply for a view from one particular window in your house. Today's tree cutting endeavor was less clean-up and did involve some Nature's Classroom-inflicted destruction; we had a large dead tree teetering over Split Rock, one of our most popular activity areas, so we had to cut it down. It took most of the day as the tree was not quite as eager to fall even though it was completely dead. After several interesting (and rather heart-stopping attempts), we finally managed to get the tree down. After counting the rings, I determined that it was about 70 years old. In trying to keep the area as "natural" as possible (while it was necessary to remove the hazzard of the dead tree), we cut the trunk up into several logs to make a sitting area. It's actually pretty nice, although it's always hard to justify disturbing nature in such a way. Anyway, in an homage to these destroyed trees, I've compiled some interesting tree facts thanks to my "research" to make our tree class better. I thought I'd share...

*In one year, an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driven up to 8,700 miles. (Which is scary when I think about how many miles I drive...)

*The average tree in a metropolitan area survives only about eight years.

*The death of one 70-year-old tree would return over 3 tons of carbon to the atmosphere.

*A tree does not reach its most productive stage of carbon storage for about ten years.

*The amount of oxygen produced by an acre of trees per year equals the amount consumed by 18 people annually. One tree produces nearly 260 pounds of oxygen each year.

*One acre of trees removes up to 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

There are over 23,000 different kinds of trees in the world. Trees help us by:

*keeping our air supply fresh by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen

*providing shelter and shade, reducing yearly heating and cooling costs by 2.1 billion dollars

*lowering air temperature by evaporating water in their leaves

*cutting down noise pollution by acting as sound barriers

*roots stabilize soil & prevent erosion

*improving water quality by slowing and filtering rain water as well as protecting aquifers and watersheds

*providing protection from downward fall of rain, sleet, & hail as well as reduce storm run-off and the possibility of flooding

*providing food and shelter for wildlife

*when located along streets, act as glare and reflection control

*shade trees can make buildings up to 20 degrees cooler in the summer

*lowering air temperature by evaporating water in their leaves

There's a lot more going on with trees than one would think! Trees also play a really interesting role in our history - check out the arbor day website (www.arborday.org/kids/teachingYouth.cfm) for some really interesting facts and games (geared towards kids, but still a pretty good resource). :-)