Trees

Trees create breathable, clean air, provide animals shelter, and offer us shade on a sunny day. A common part of our daily landscape, trees are often overlooked. Let's slow down and get to know a tree.

Challenge: Pick a Special Tree

It could be near your sit spot or somewhere new. It could be a coniferous or deciduous tree.

Look at all parts of your tree closely

    • around the base and the roots

    • at the trunk

    • high up into the branches.

Challenge: Document Your Tree Observations

  • Make detailed observations of your tree in your nature journal.

  • Draw your tree from different perspectives: from a high place, underneath looking up, or from a distance.

  • Based on your observations, write a list of 10 words to describe your tree. Use those words in a paragraph or poem.

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Tree Buds

Watch the video to learn how to identify:

  • terminal buds

  • side buds

  • leaf scars

Tree Bark

  • Go outside and find 2-5 trees with different bark.

  • Write down your observations of each tree and do a bark rubbing.


We Love Trees!

We all know that trees give us awesome things like oxygen to breathe, lumber for shelter, delicious things to eat, habitat for animals, beauty, and they help clean our water. Tree provide us so much!


Challenge: Tree or Not a Tree?

Did you know there are hundreds of everyday products that need trees to be made? Below are pictures of everyday objects. Fourteen of them involve some type of tree product and one does not. Can you figure out which one doesn’t come from a tree?

Items Shown in Picture:

  • toilet paper

  • cinnamon

  • toothpaste

  • coffee

  • comb

  • maple syrup

  • cough drops

  • chocolate

  • pepper

  • shampoo

  • motor oil

  • shoe polish

  • baseball

  • fabric

  • latex paint

No Peeking Until you make your Choice!

Looking for Lichen

Lichen is a plant-like organism that grows on trees and rocks. Over 750 species of lichen live in Minnesota and come in a variety of colors like green, yellow, orange, red, and white. Lichen is easy to spot on trees, but don’t worry, the lichen is not hurting the tree, it just lives on top of the bark.

What is lichen?

Lichen is a combination of fungus and algae. The fungus creates the structure and the algae produces the food and together they live as lichen. This is a symbiotic relationship because the fungus and algae need each other to live.


Why is lichen important?

Lichen love clean air and die quickly if there is high air pollution. Scientists use lichen as a bioindicator to determine the air quality of an area. This means if there is lichen on trees, the air quality in that area is good.


3 Main Types of Lichen

Crustose- crusty and flat. Usually red, yellow and orange in color.

Foliose- leaf-like in shape with thin roots to anchor them

Fruticose- bushy, looks like miniature shrubs

Challenge: Lichen Hunting!

Now head outside and look for lichen. It can grow in unexpected places- like on this old clothesline.

Seed Dispersal

Learn how seeds get spread around so a plants grow in a variety of places?