Plant Growth and Climate Change: Urban Trees? Role as a Carbon Sink
Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2019, Volume 40
Elisabeth A. Calhoon, E. Corrie Pieterson, & Steven W. Gougherty
Abstract
Students struggle to connect small-scale processes like photosynthesis and cellular respiration to large-scale phenomena such as climate change. We developed this exercise for undergraduate introductory biology labs to help students understand how the growth of trees on their campus relates to fluxes in atmospheric carbon. Students apply the scientific process by generating hypotheses about plant growth in urban and forest ecosystems, collecting data on campus trees, and analyzing these data along with a citizen science-generated database of campus trees to determine annual biomass accumulation. They then draw conclusions about variation in tree growth at individual, local, and regional scales.
Keywords: climate change, carbon sink, plant biomass, green roof, urban ecology, urban tree canopy
