Succession and Forest Habitats Session 2
Conduct this session in the classroom.
- Write this chart on the board:
A Tree's Maturity and Life Span Tree Years to Maturity Avg. Life Span Softwood (e.g., pine) 40-45 Over 100 years Hardwood (e.g., oak, maple) 80-100 Hundreds of years
- Ask students to compare these numbers to the number of years it takes a human to reach maturity (adulthood).
- Divide the class into five groups. Explain the term succession (see Background). Then assign each group to a different stage of succession described in William Jaspersohn's book How the Forest Grew. Have each group look at a different section.
- Meadow (pp. 7–13)
- Brush (pp. 14–19)
- Pioneer forest (pp. 20–30)
- Middle stage forest (pp. 31–37)
- Final/climax forest (pp. 38–51)
- Read aloud the first page of text (page 5) in How the Forest Grew. Note that this book spans a period of 200 years. Ask the group assigned to the "Final/climax forest" stage to read the beginning of the first sentence on page 46 ("By the year 1927, which was one hundred and fifty years after the forest had begun..."). Ask students to determine the year the forest began (1927 – 150 = 1777). Before groups begin to work together, ask them to skim through their assigned section of the book to find the years of the forest's life in which their stage takes place. Then on bulletin board paper, create a chart based on the groups' findings such as the following:
Group's Findings Stage Years after forest began Year Field abandoned (beginning) 0 1777 Meadow 2 or 3 (see How the Forest Grew, p. 9) 1779 or 1780 Brush 5 (see p. 14) 1782 Pioneer forest 25 (see p. 20) 1802 Middle stage forest 83 (see p. 37) 1860 Final/Climax forest 150 (see p. 46) 1927
- Direct the groups to read their assigned sections of How the Forest Grew and find information about the forest habitat as it existed during their assigned stage (e.g., how it looked, what animal and plant life inhabited it). Provide each group with poster paper and other drawing materials. Instruct them to draw and label the elements of their stage's forest habitat. Give extra sheets of poster paper to the three forest stage groups (i.e., pioneer, middle stage, and final/climax) so that they can make their drawings taller than the meadow and brush stages drawings.
- Next, tell each group to use history textbooks or other references to find an important historic event that occurred in the year their stage started. (See Using the Library Media Center for Project Research and Using the World Wide Web for Project Research in the Project Action Guide.) Tell them to illustrate and label the event on another sheet of poster paper.
- Finally, create a timeline spanning 200 years, and label it with the dates that define each stage of the forest. Then align each forest stage poster and each historic event poster with the corresponding dates on the timeline.
- Discuss the timeline. Ask students how long it takes for a forest to grow. Ask how long it takes to cut a forest down. Compare these lengths of time. Ask how old the students would be when a forest that begins its growth today is a pioneer forest, a middle stage forest, and a climax forest.