Think Like a Tree!
Have you ever wondered how to think like a tree? The two stories below can help us imagine how a tree thinks.
Making Tree Halos
If you visit the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center, you can put on your "thinking caps" to help you think like a tree - which if you think about it, would be a "tree halo"! You can make your own tree halos like the kids above! Why halos? Well, read the stories below about how trees think and you will know why trees are pretty angelic!
Think Like a Tree in Yosemite!
I am a mighty oak, a towering cedar, or a sturdy pine tree, reaching upward to the sky between the high granite walls that surround Yosemite Valley. Over many thousands of years, the Merced River has created a fertile floodplain for my home. Water from the Merced River, plus rain and snow, flow down into the ground between the rocks and grains of sand and clay. My roots reach deep within the soil for water. Fungi and bacteria in the soil break down organic matter, such as fallen leaves, into food that I can absorb through my roots.
As the sun passes above Yosemite Valley, the leaves on my branches capture energy from the sun and release oxygen into the air. Winter storms cause my branches to sway and bend. Sometimes a branch will break and go crashing to the ground. During the spring and summer, birds and squirrels will raise their families in the safety of my branches.
I provide the Ahwahneechee with acorns for food, and wood for shelter and heat. They treat me as a respected friend. Visitors to Yosemite Valley hike through my forests, have a picnic in my shade, or photograph my beautiful fall colors. Sometimes they will even give me a hug!
The seasons, the weather, and the Merced River are always changing. Those changes have made me strong and I have adapted to them. Visitors to Yosemite can help me to grow and thrive by making sure that I have clean water and air. You can do your part by conserving water, disposing of trash properly, and reducing your energy use.
[PDF version of above story - add your own tree pictures in the margins!]
THINK LIKE A TREE * AIR * SOIL * WATER
Trees, without them we would not have oranges, apples or bananas.
Or houses Or wooden shoes Or chairs Or medicine Or Life.
Without plants, and trees are plants, we would not be here on
EARTH.
TREES BREATHE
In the leaves on a tree, water combines with carbon dioxide, an odorless gas that is everywhere in the atmosphere {when there is too much, it is called Climate Change} and with sunlight to make sugar. Sugar is food for the trees. During this process called photosynthesis, the leaves produce oxygen.
Oxygen and water evaporate through the leaves into the air – called transpiration {a big word} - which means how a tree breathes - and makes oxygen. We need oxygen to breathe. And, trees make oxygen for us.
THANK TREES!
TREES, ROOTS AND SOIL
Tree roots keep trees from falling down. The tree's roots grip the ground and anchor the tree, and stop erosion, which means roots keep soil in place. Roots preserve soil, they keep it to use later—so we don't use all the soil at once. Roots are like a bank for soil. Soil, which is filled with minerals and water, feeds each tree through the roots. The whole root system of a tree is often bigger than the tree branches and all the leaves.
TREES AND WATER
Did you know that 50 percent of a tree, which means half of every tree, is made up of water.
HOW DOES A TREE DRINK?
Water in the soil passes through the tree's tiny hair-like roots. It enters the bigger roots to which the tiny roots are connected and is carried up the tree's trunk all the way to the leaves.
Trees, especially forests--a lot of trees living together—like a village—play a big role in helping water to enter the ground and fill the water table – which is not a table at all and really more like an underground lake. The soil around and under the tree roots helps to hold the water so it can be absorbed and replenished in the underground lake—the water table. Trees are the Earth's sponges.
HOW MUCH WATER DOES A TREE DRINK?
A tree 100 feet tall has about 200,000 leaves, which is a lot of leaves. In one year a tree can drink 11,000 gallons of water from the soil and release it into the air as oxygen and water vapor. We cannot see oxygen and water vapor is a very fine mist that we mostly cannot see either.
Let's leave streams and river banks as natural as possible. When soil is undisturbed and covered with trees, shrubs, wildflowers, ferns, and mosses, erosion is prevented. And, the EARTH IS HEALTHY AND HAPPY. We have air, soil and water.
[PDF version of above story - printable]
We hope that each of our 17,000 visitors, who stop by to meet us each season, from May 1 through September 30, will learn to think like a tree! Begun in 2016, the "Think Like a Tree" project will continue in 2017.
The "Think LIke a Tree" program is just one of the many summer programs provided for families at the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center. For 2017, we launched in addition, the "Love Your Nature" project. Earlier programs include the Wilderness Qult Project, "Dr. Nature's EQ - 1-1-52," "Words for Wilderness," the "Green Shoes Project."
Photo by Margee Hill