I'm adding a new week in Field Natural History focused on hidden networks in forests: fungi, detritivores, chemical ecology and plant "communication." (I structure this class around themes/stories.) Each week a I do a hands-on skill session, and I'm looking for ideas for activities we could do. 1/2
Identify a Fabaceae family plant and dig up rhizobia nodules?
This sounds wonderful!
I want to insert a scope into the soil to observe roots growing alongside fungi and to see the air pockets inside alder roots which allow them to grow in wet soils and breathing holes on the trunks. Perhaps your students could brainstorm some ideas to observe the mycelial network with the naked eye
Termites. Termites. Termites. They work at the micro scale and they also remodel land and ecosystems.
Yes! I've made some suggestions for a termite-based activity above based on one we did during intro biology when I was a TA in grad school. Termites rock! (except when they are drywood termites in one's house...)
I don’t have any ideas off the top of my head, but that sounds like a really cool subject. If I think of anything, I will let you know.
You must know about this board game on plant / fungal networks, from @alderaceg.bsky.social, right? www.alderac.com/undergrove/
I don’t! Thank you!
The lectures set up the theme. Labs involve walks, then field journal entries assigned from a handout. Skill sessions are hands-on group activities on different naturalist skills. For this new week, I'm thinking something with fungi, lichen, maybe detritivores? I'd love suggestions! 2/2
ooh, if capturing and rearing bugs is a skill of interest, go collect isopods, springtails, slime mold etc during a field day and keep them in a box in the classroom, maybe look at their food preferences?
Do you have mycoheterotrophs or other parasitic plants at the site? 👀 Looking at tree neighborhoods of mycoheterotrophs (and maybe nearby random points without them) and looking up what fungi the tree species host could be fun
We'll do some of that in the field lab, but I'm looking for the paired in-class exercise we can do indoors for the active learning session (which happens in addition to the field lab!).
When I was doing my degree in Earth Science one of my courses was on ecosystems and I remember us doing a fun and interesting group experiment of identifying which side of trees lichens were most often found.
There was also one on measuring temperature under trees at various points to determine how and if the canopy influenced the temperature in summer when in full leaf and in winter when leaves were shed.
That sounds like a really fun class. :)
All distance learning too - so all the students were spread around the UK. We had to bring our findings together online.
(Other skill sessions include learning bird songs from recordings and spectrograms, identifying species using dichotomous keys, verifying iNaturalist observations, pinning insects, and identifying mammals from tracks, skulls, and camera traps.)
If you have wood ants you could try erasing their trails with solvents (you may recall what happens from A Bug's Life), if you have time to observe a nest, adding visual signals (flags and whatever) to see if that changes how they navigate etc.
That's fun!
Erase trails with alcohol - you'll find them going up trees or whatever. Ants soon find their way back to the trail via random walk. You could time it and see what the relation is between the length of trail you have erased and time it takes to remake it.
To clarify, the "skill sessions" activities have to be something we can do in a classroom (I have an active learning room). We have outdoor field labs each week, so this is in addition to going outside, not instead-of. :)
I want to be a student in your class, it sounds wonderful!!
I also want to be a student, it sounds super neat!
You could hook up an amplifier and use the pickup to explore a sample of fungi or other stuff you know is safe. I've discovered that different things make different sounds depending on how close the pickup is. You can definitely hear magnets for example.
I don't think we're on the same landmass, but as a short course / intersdisciplinary partnership thingy, this would have fantastic arts interest
@lycomorpha.bsky.social Tagging you!
That sounds so cool! Does lichen-based air quality surveying fit the theme?
It has to be an indoor lab, focused on naturalist skills. This is in addition to the field lab. But that’s a fun idea!
Dissecting owl pellets. Identifying regular and irregular fractals across scales. Using satellite views to identify natural corridors at city to multi-state/province scales. Macro photography.
Spore prints, if you can! We do a plant and animal id class and many students pick fungi for their special project because we don’t cover them in class. We ask they do spore prints for their record books (instead of like, pressing plants)
If you have access to mature-to-rotting mushrooms, it's fun to look at all the little critters that eat mushrooms. Might be hard to plan in advance though since mushrooms are so weather dependent
Ever since I learned about trees communicating in forests it makes me sad to think about all the singular trees in people's yards.
We did a neat activity when I was a TA for intro bio in grad school - the students were given boxes of termites, kitchen roll/paper towel, and various pens and pencils. Goal was to set up a basic experiment to test hypotheses about whether e.g. termites could trail-follow some pens and not others...
... might be fun to test this with serial dilutions of a plant essential oil instead (perhaps several different ones, including something wood-based like frankincense vs something more floral?
It's chemtrails, but real!
Unfortunately typical termite trail pheromones are probably not commercially available (table here: www.frontiersin.org/files/Articl...)
With the serial dilutions, it might be neat for the students to compare different essential oils, see at what point extinction (no more trail following response) occurs in the serial dilution, does this differ by different essential oils, etc!
Separately, I don't know if you do any reading, but this paper might be a fun one to present or explain to the students - combo of chemical ecology, 3D printing, fungal mimicry by orchids, and more! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Reading as part of the class, I mean, obviously you read yourself :-)