Activity 1
Students first read a few pages describing the HBES and the research we do here. Then they follow a brief protocol that describes how to take the online virtual tour. After (or during) the tour, you may instruct your students to answer questions on one of the handouts we have developed to accompany the tour.
Activity 2
In this activity, adapted from the LTER Teacher's Manual, students compare a treatment watershed (deforested Watershed 2) with reference Watershed 3 (uncut forest). Students will manipulate the data to determine whether one of the hypotheses was correct: that less water would be taken up by vegetation, and streamflow levels would therefore increase. Students will compare the results suggested by a few years of data to the conclusions that can be drawn from a long-term study.
Activity 3
Because Watershed 6 is used as the main reference for many experiments and is an excellent example of a typical northern hardwood forest biome watershed, HBES scientists have been conducting long-term monitoring in it since the early 1960's. In this activity, students learn about the importance of long-term monitoring, reference watersheds, and how scientists use plot studies to examine large areas. Then they have the opportunity to use scientific protocols to measure the trees in their own schoolyard (or nearby study areas) and/or to manipulate data from Hubbard Brook.
Teacher's Manual
The teacher's manual explains all the activities. Since it's very short, we haven't split it up into individual activities. Download and read the teacher's manual before any of the other activities, data files, etc.