Maine Land Conservation Conference

Whoo! I spent Friday, April 5th, and the morning of Saturday, April 6th assisting with a presentation at the Maine Land Conservation Conference, sponsored by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. What a fabulous conference attended by tremendously dedicated people all with a vested interest in land conservation "...to train on best practices in all aspects of land trust work..."

Ken shows a diagram of a FIG Plot

I had the privilege of working with Ken Laustsen, the retired biometrician for the Maine Forest Service, on a field course workshop titled, "Using Data to Explore Carbon Pools on a Forested Acre." Ken is a superb forester and number cruncher, and his goal was to give participants experience in creating a FIG (Forest Inventory Growth) Plot by measuring trees, and to discuss where carbon is stored in forests and how carbon pools change over time. 

We went to the Tardiff Land Trust, on Middlesex Rd. in Topsham, for the outdoor portion of our workshop. Here you see Ken showing participants how to use Biltmore Sticks to find a rough estimate of the height of a tree.

He also showed participants how to use a Diameter Tape to measure the dbh (diameter at breast height) of a tree. After this and other demos, participants measured all the trees above 5" in diameter on the 1/10th acre plot.

On Saturday, Ken discussed the data with participants which lead to very lively discussions about carbon pools.

I got to chat with participants about how I use this data (on a very simplistic level) with my grade 9 science students. They have to design carbon cycle posters for a forested acre, inspired by the Project Learning Tree e-unit, Carbon and Climate (all of which follow a Forest Field Day where I have foresters, a soil scientist, and Ken lead short 25 minute presentations throughout the forest of Thorncrag Nature Preserve, in Lewiston.) Fun, Fun, Fun!