Welcome to the Virginia Tech Forest Biodiversity Site


In this study, students measure trees on a 1/10th acre forest plot or trees on their school campus. Basal area of trees per acre and species richness are calcualted as measures of biodiversity. Students are encouraged to work as teams to write their own scientific paper, including comparison and analysis of their data with other sites. Results will be posted here.

Instructions


Biodiversity Calculator


Data Tables


Summary of the 1999 Biodiversity Study


Writing a scientific paper

Introduction
  • Why is biodiversity important?
  • How do we measure biodiversity?
  • Do you have specific hypotheses you would like to address?
Methods
  • Describe your site.
  • What did you measure?
  • How did you measure?
Results
  • Calcualte basal area (BA) per acre for your site
  • Calcualte species richness (SR) for your site
  • Draw a table that compares your BA and SR with other sites
  • Graph your data with species on X-axis; # of trees on Y-axis
Discussion
  • Which site had the most species?
  • Which site has the greatest BA per acre?
  • Which site has the greatest SR?

Conclusions
  • Which site has the greatest biodiversity? Why?
  • How did your site compare with others?
  • Could you improve the biodiversity of your site? How?
  • What could you do differently next time?

Please send your answers, graphs, tables and pictures to Dr. Jeff Kirwan, jkirwan@vt.edu. (or VA Tech Department of Forestry, Mail Code 0324, Blacksburg, VA 24061). Please include your return e-mail address.
This web site is part of the TeacherBridge project (http://teacherbridge.cs.vt.edu/) and is designed to support authoring and contribution by users. If you would like more information, please drop us a note.
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Last modified 8/14/07 2:51 PM by jkirwan (history)
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