Digging into The Forest Discovery Box

Using either the Forest Discovery Box in your school, or the one on-line, here are a few suggestions for activities you and your students can do in your Naturalized school yard.

A. Overhead Transparencies

There are a variety of overhead transparencies available in your Forest Discovery Guide - these may be helpful in preparing for a trip to the schoolyard (the Forest Regions of Canada map) or in identifying tree species (identification keys).

7.1 Forest Regions of Canada
7.2 Key for Softwood Trees
7.3 Winter Key for Hardwood Trees
7.4 Summer Key for Hardwood Trees
7.9 Cross-section of a Tree Trunk
7.10 Tree Terminology
7.11 Cone & Seed Development
7.12 Magnified Paper samples

B. Wood, Cone & Seed Samples

On a trip to the Schoolyard, have students collect as many different examples of cones, leaves, etc. They should note the location where they were found and if possible, determine which tree they came from. (All notes, sketches etc. should be kept in a Field Studies notebook.)

Have the students identify their finds using the samples in the Forest Discovery Box. Have students examine the labelled Wood samples and match them with the Seed and Cone samples provided, and with their own.

C. Tree Cookies - see P. 2.3 in Forest Discovery

D. Specimen Boxes

There are 4 specimen boxes contained in the Forest Discovery Box. These are suitable for viewing small objects, as they have a magnifier top.