LaPaz Home Learning

The annual bombing raid over Lapaz Farm has begun yet again. With a half dozen very large Chestnut trees gracing the property, a stroll about the farm this time of year means taking your life in your hands. And what doesn’t get you from above lies in wait like a spiny land mine waiting for an unprotected foot, or hand (or other assorted body parts) to stumble upon it. Agony, I tell you. Pure agony to get those spines stuck in tender skin and they dont come out easily.
Here is what I mean:

This is actually a rather small, early specimen. Later in the season the really big ones come down and they are the size of softballs. I kid you not! But really, I should not complain because once you work your way past that prickly exterior you find nuts that are incredibly tasty. And we have an abundance every year. More than we can gather for sure, though the kids do their darndest to keep up, snacking as they go. We eat them raw or roasted and they are just too wonderfully toasty good. Delicious and nutritious, too, as a chestnut is nutritionally more akin to a grain than other nuts, being low in oil and high in starchy carbs. And every year we have at least a few folks stop by to ask if they can gather some, walking away with grocery bags full. One gentleman stops by every year to gather them for his wife, who is Cherokee and makes a traditional bread from the flour she grinds from them.

A little natural history: The Eastern US used to be covered in forest and the dominant tree in those forests was the American Chestnut, providing abundant food for wildlife like deer and bears as well as the cattle and pigs of the Appalachian settlers. Averaging five feet in diameter and one hundred feet tall, it was a tree of unsurpassed usefulness and beauty. But those mighty trees are no more. Growing tall and straight the Chestnut was prized for lumber and logged voraciously, but that is not what did them in. It was an Asian fungus brought in on some tainted trees that laid the mighty Chestnut low . First spotted in New York in 1904, the Chestnut blight spread rampant across the Eastern forests and by 1950 virtually every last standing Chestnut succumbed to a slow death. The remaining trees were harvested quickly in order to make use of them before they also faced the inevitable and the face of the forest was changed forever. To this day the stumps of these ancient giants continue to regenerate hopeful sprouts, but these eventually also succumb to the blight.

But there is a glimmer of hope. A very few, rare resistant trees have been found surviving in remote places. And in what may be the last chance for the great American tree, The American Chestnut foundation sponsors continuing reseach on producing crosses of the mighty American Chestnut with the disease-resistant (but less commercially desirable) Chinese Chestnut (like my trees). Using ancient methods combined with the latest genetic research, the Foundation hopes to produce highly disease-resistant trees which are 15/16ths American Chestnut and 1/16th Chinese. Lets hope they are successful and these wonderful trees will once again tower over the Eastern US.

Some Nature study ideas on Chestnuts and trees in general:

Spotted a Chestnut tree? Check it out and see if it is long-lost American: Identifying Chestnuts or here: Identifying Chestnuts

Here is an educational website put together by the Chestnut foundation for kids: Charlie Chestnut and some lesson plans here.

Go outside with your nature journals and draw some trees! Do rubbings of leaves and bark. Draw the whole tree, noticing the shape of the tree silhouette, and then draw some details such as leaf margins or twig shapes.

Look for galls

For little ones, here is a very nice basic tutorial on trees. Trees are Terrific

Dendrochronology: Look at a cut-down tree and see if you can count the rings to see how old the tree was when it was cut (one ring per year). If you know what year it was cut then can do a fun activity where you put pins in the correct ring for different events, (such as a child’s birthdate) and see how big the tree was at that time.

Make a leaf collection: Nice online leaf key and twig key (don’t let winter stop you from tree identification!) Another good key here.

Once you’ve learned to identify trees, try your hand at some Tree identification quizzes. (check the sidebar links)
Make a set of cards with different leaf shapes (excellent chart here, pictures here) and use them to go on a leaf shape scavenger hunt. See how many you can find!

Find the biggest tree you can and stand in front of it like the picture of the Chestnut above. How does your big tree compare? Measure the DBH (diameter at breast height) of the trees in your yard, neighborhood or local park (may involve a little geometry!) Make a graph of the data.

Make a list of all of the products we use that come from trees. Start with lumber and paper, but then get creative! Who can list the most products in 10 minutes? Once you have made your list check here for a list of many, many tree products you may or may not have thought of (umm…oxygen!)! The same site has a bunch of excellent tree-related lesson plans here for all kinds of interesting tree-related study.
If you are lucky enough to live in an area where sugar maples grow, do pay a visit to a farm at sugaring time! What a sweet treat! But don’t let geography stop you! Trees are producing tasty treats of some sort everywhere! Depending on where you live, try visiting an orange grove, a pecan grove, a Christams tree farm, avocado orchard, apple orchard, peach orchard…I’m sure you get the picture!

While we’re talking tasty: Check out the nutritional information on chestnuts:here Perhaps do a comparison/contrast chart of nutritional info on chestnut versus other nuts or grains.

Visit a sawmill, lumber yard, or paper factory to find out how trees are used to make some very important products.

Well, there are so many more things we can do with trees, but I think I am about done with this post. Perhaps others can add their ideas in the comments!