Objectives and Goals

Objectives
The Urban Forestry Unit has three primary objectives:

1. To educate and inform students and participants about how trees function in an urban setting. 3. To provide an opportunity to participate in the development of an urban forest in your community.
2. To collect data on trees in their urban environment in order to determine how well the tree is surviving.

Goals:
By the end of this Urban Forestry Unit the student will be able to:

1. Develop a map of the trees at or near the school by applying the classification scheme developed during the unit. 12. Demonstrate various ways to display the same data by use of computer generated graphs.
2. Recognize that one population of plants or animals can have an affect on others, even in an urban setting. 13. Apply quantitative observational methods to accumulate precise data about the trees on their school site.
3. Understand that interactions among trees, soil and people are increasing in importance in urban settings. 14. Construct a classification scheme for the trees on the school site and demonstrate its use in class.
4. Evaluate data collected to determine how trees are changing the environment. 15. Evaluate and revise an inference based upon additional data gathered during the unit.
5. Identify the current state and future of forestry as a career. 16. Revise a prediction on the basis of additional information.
6. Identify the effect of planting and harvesting trees in an urban environment. 17. Identify appropriate methods of measurement for a given task.
7. Know how scientific inquiry is influenced by beliefs, traditions, views, and actions of society as they pertain to trees in an urban setting. 18. Analyze the results of each experiment.
8. Replicate the results of another student's experiment during this unit. 19. Evaluate the interpretation of data collected during each experiment.
9. Recognize that experimental results must be open to the scrutiny of others; through the comparison of group results on the same trees. 20. Analyze an operational definition based upon a simple experiment.
10. Understand that data reflects the accuracy of the measuring devices for tree characteristics. 21. Use direct observation to develop a question, and then answer it as part of the lab exercise.
11. Demonstrate the ability to draw conclusions from collected data about the tree's environment. 22. Identify possible sources of error in measuring instruments, by comparing results of each group's measurements on the same tree.

Return to the Table of Contents