| Curriculum Notebook - Grades 5-9 | ||||||||||||||||
Interpretive Stops
1. Along Aptos Creek
Additional Information |
Measuring Tree Height
Grades 5-9 Students will: f. Select appropriate tools (e.g., thermometers, meter sticks, balances, and graduated cylinders) and make quantitative observations
1. Make a quantitative observation.
2. Understand how right angles can be used to determine the height of an object.
3. Learn to use a meter tape.
1. Meter tapes 2. Enough 45-degree right triangles for each group of three students 3. Pencils, paper, and graph paper for each group 4. If you want to select from four different methods for measuring the heights of trees, go to the following web page and print out, Following Fall. Use the area near "Big "Round"", Stop No. 12, to do this activity. Instructions: 30 minutes 1. The teacher can choose one of three methods (from the above web page link) or use this simple method below (Method 3 from the web page) to find the height of a tree. 2. Ask students to work in groups of three. Assign one student to record the distance, the other to use the right angle to sight the tree, and the other student to measure the distance using the tape. 3. Hand out meter tapes and 45-degree right triangles. Ask students to choose one tree and then to back away from the tree until the top of the tree is seen at the tip of the long edge of the triangle forming an isoceles triangle. This means that the distance from the person holding the right angle to the base of the tree, plus the height of the viewer, is the also the height of the tree. 4. Have students choose other trees to measure, rotating the three jobs until they've each had a chance to record, measure, and sight. Since some douglas-firs grow near Stop 12, ask them to measure and record the height of a douglas-fir. Remind them how to distinguish a Douglas-fir from a redwood. (See Redwoods and Associates) 5. Ask students to graph the height of each tree as well as the diameter of each of the three trees were measured in their survey. 6. In the same groups of three, guide children in making graphs of the diameter and the height of their three trees. If necessary, the teacher may want to pool the class information to take back to the school computer lab or at this point, the teacher may want to take the groups to Stop 16, the Pourroy's Picnic Area so that the picnic table can be used to complete the graphing portion of the activity. 7. Ask students to visualize the sides of a large right angle created by the height of the tree on one side with the distance from the tree on the other. Why does this method of measuring trees work? Used by permission and modified from Center for Global Environmental Education
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Objectives
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