Curated OER
Tree Cookies!
"Tree Cookies!" is a delicious little presentation designed to introduce upper elementary or middle school botanists to the anatomy of a tree trunk. The cambium, phloem, xylem, and other vital structures are identified and defined. Two...
Curated OER
Tree Cookies
You will find a viewer-friendly PowerPoint on the growth rings and other features found in a cross-section of a tree trunk, affectionately known as a "tree cookie." A few worksheets are provided for practice counting tree rings and a...
Alabama Learning Exchange
How Old Is That Tree?
Fifth graders study environmental changes by examining the annual rings of a cross-section of a tree trunk. They access websites to complete a worksheet on the parts of a tree. They count the annual rings on a tree slice while observing...
Chicago Botanic Garden
What Can Tree Rings Tell Us About Climate?
Tree rings are slightly thicker on the south side of the tree because it receives more sunlight. Part two in a series of five lessons helps learners analyze tree rings to determine the environmental conditions that caused size...
It's About Time
Paleoclimates
How do scientists know what the Earth was like in the past? This second installment of a six-part series focuses on paleoclimates and provides an overview of how geologists determine information about past climates using fossil pollen,...
Curated OER
Life Cycle of Trees
Turn your students into young tree-tectives with this fun science investigation into the life of trees. To begin, a class volunteer gets dressed up in a tree costume as the different parts of trees are introduced. Then, the class learns...
National Wildlife Federation
Branching Out – Exploring Dendrochronology
Tree rings from North America give a continuous history of El Nino intensity over the last 1,100 years. Scholars learn how scientists use tree rings to create timelines demonstrating variations in weather patterns. The cumulative...
Curated OER
Tree Friends
Students are introduced to tree structure and use. They identify their special tree using all senses except sight. Students identify six different internal parts within a cross section of tree trunk (bark, phloem, xylem, cambium,...
Curated OER
Tree Birthdays
Students investigate the growth of trees. In this tree growth lesson, students discover that trees make a ring each year they live. Students use new voabulary such as bark, phloem, and cambuim to talk about tree parts. Students create a...
Curated OER
Tree-Ring Activity
In this tree ring worksheet, students analyze tree ring samples to determine the age of the tree. They compare them to archived samples and answer questions about the age of the tree and its growth years and abnormal growth years.
Curated OER
Tree Cookies
Students identify heartwood, sapwood, and a tree's annual rings, infer from a tree's rings what damage or stress might have occurred in its life, and make a time-line of human history that coincides with a tree's rings.
Curated OER
Explorit's Tree Quiz
In this online interactive tree quiz worksheet, students respond to 6 questions. Students may check their answers for accuracy.
Curated OER
Dating a Volcanic Eruption
Young scholars discover the various ways in which tree rings can give information. After a brief disucssion of concentric tree rings, they use cross section cut outs of tree rings to identify the time and type of various naturally...
National Park Service
It Was a Very Good Year
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park includes whitebark pines that are over 1,200 years old, meaning they have been there since before medieval times. The second lesson of five details how to read tree rings for climate change and...
Curated OER
Data-gathering Activities Relating to Trees in Their Environment
Students gather data relating to trees in their environment. In this biology lesson plan, students determine heights of trees and their ages. A canopy map will indicate optimal growing areas for the tree.
Curated OER
Trees: Recorders of Climate Change
Students study cross sections of trees or tree "cookies" to discover how the rings on tree sections give clues to the climate during the time the ring was produced. They study simulated cross sections of trees to determine the climate...
Curated OER
Global Change- Time and Cycles
Young scholars study trees and their growth. In this investigative lesson students work in groups to reconstruct a 50 year climatic history using a simulated tree ring.
Curated OER
Flowering Plants
In this flowering plants activity, high schoolers compare the structure and function of a tree trunk and a leaf. This activity has 1 true or false and 5 fill in the blank questions.
Curated OER
How Does a Tree Grow?
Eighth graders learn about the life of a tree. In this tree growth lesson, 8th graders discuss and dramatize the life of a tree from seed to trunk. There are no
Curated OER
Tree-Ring Dating
In this tree-ring dating worksheet, students use activity sheets to determine a tree's age and to observe changes in climate from the tree-rings. Students investigate how archaeologists use tree rings to date evidence and they answer 5...
Curated OER
How Old Is This Tree?
Students work in pairs to determine the age of a tree using two different methods in this experiment. They collect data about how trees change over time.
Curated OER
Student Exploration: Measuring Trees
In this measuring trees worksheet, students explore the internet program Gizmo about measuring trees and answer short answer questions about it. Students answer 22 questions.
Curated OER
Ring-a-ling
Students examine a cross section of a tree. They discuss what the rings mean and how they can tell its age. They complete a worksheet to end the lesson.
Curated OER
Wood, I Like to Get to Know You
Learners examine trees. In this tree lesson, students create a model of a tree and its parts.