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| Plot 1 |
Plot 2 |
Plot 3 |
Plot 4 |
Plot 5 |
Plot 6 |
Watershed Plots
Watersheds are where the action is in the terrestrial world, where the rubber meets the road. That is, where water meets the land, and life takes root. Wherever the wind blows and the sun shines, water is often the limiting resource that determines what grows in a given locale. What grows in a place determines what wildlife can thrive in the vicinity. Watersheds, by supplying water and nutrients to plant roots through the growing season, make life possible on Mount Desert Island, in Maine, and on every continent on Earth.
Six one-meter-square plots have been laid out in the watershed of Eagle Lake in Acadia National Park. A web page is devoted to each plot, illustrated with detailed photos taken through the changing seasons of the year.
Nothing is labeled in the photos, just as plants are not labeled in nature. Nature does not announce its name; it is up to us to classify and name what we notice. The best way to learn how to observe nature is to sit quietly in one spot and open your senses to the world around you. Create a space inside yourself for each of these six plots, adopt an attitude of curiosity, and let the photos respond to your questions as best they can. Observe the details carefully, then use guidebooks and class resources to identify what you see.
You may recognize some things right away. In other cases you will have to guess. Always check your guess, trying either to verify or disprove it. Keep checking and making educated guesses until you are sure you can identify the plants and other details illustrated in the photos. Pay particular attention to changes in each plot through the seasons. Some plants sprout early, some late. They all grow larger. Many bear flowers and berries or seeds of some sort. Plants, it turns out, have a life. One of the most exciting things you can learn is what plants do with their share of Earth's sunlight, air, water, and nutrients. Plants turn out to be as different and interesting as people.
For a key to help you identify the trees of Acadia National Park, click TREE KEY.
QUESTIONS and SUGGESTIONS
- Rank the plots by the diversity of species they contain.
- What signs of wildlife can you find in the various plots?
- Everything that happens in each plot requires water, air, soil, and sunlight. The plants are an integral part of the water cycle, water arriving through the roots, exiting through the leaves by evapotranspiration, making photosynthesis and the flow of sap possible in between. Develop the idea that the flow of water promotes the flow of plant life through the seasons, and the flow of animal life along with it.
- Small teams of students can study watershed plots at school. Using four-foot bamboo garden stakes (available at hardware and garden stores), make one-meter square frames by taping four stakes together so that each side is 100 centimeters long. Lay each frame on the ground in a relatively natural area where it will not be disturbed. Align the sides north--south, east-west, for consistency. Carefully observe what happens in each plot over a span of time. Make lists of plant and animal species that appear in or affect each plot. How much rain does each plot receive? How much sun? Where does the water flowing through the soil come from? What watershed is your plot located in? How do people affect what happens in each plot?
- You can also study plots at home in much the same way, doing a project that compares two or more plots in different kinds of soils or habitats.
- Compare your school or home plots with the six plots in Acadia National Park that are illustrated on this web page. As a national park, Acadia is an area relatively undisturbed by human activities. Is that true of your plots at school or home? How do people affect the ground they live on?
- Close-up photography requires special equipment and training. One of the best ways of recording what you observe in your plot(s) is to make drawings based on careful observation. You don't have to be an artist to draw a leaf, a small tree, or a flower. Just pay careful attention to what you see, and make sketches that include the most important details. If you don't get it right the first time, try again. And then again. You'll get better at drawing and observing the longer you keep at it. After a while, you will see more in the world around you than people do who go whizzing by without paying attention to anything but the thoughts in their heads.
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http://www.nps.gov/acad/flow/plots.html
Last update 1/15/00