Signs of Summer: "But think of the children!"

We want people to know: Tree seedlings are often ovelooked, but they are an important part of any forest ecosystem.

In our project we are studying seedlings (the teaspoon-to-pint sized trees that cover the  forest floor.) I (Lony) am studying the photosynthetic work that these seedlings are capable of, testing an hypothesis that the work of the legion of seedlings in a forest rivals the amount of work done by the far fewer, far larger adult trees. I (Dayna) am studying how seedling growth is related to different biotic factors, like species density and proximity to various adult trees. Seedlings are the future- to understand how our forests will change and are changing, we must study their littlest and most fragile citizens.

As part of our Environmental Sign Making workshop, artist and educator David Buckley Borden showed us how to combine images in the culture with scientific information to convey facts and attitudes about our research to a wide audience.