Design Sprint with Harvard Graduate School of Education: Student clubs collaborate on resource reorganization

On Wednesday, December 7th, the Harvard Forest Education and Outreach team co-sponsored a design sprint with the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s UI/UX and Students for Climate Justice clubs. The group spent the evening coming up with potential solutions for reorganizing the Teacher Resource page on the Forest’s Schoolyard Ecology website to make it easier for teachers to access and utilize the program’s wealth of available lesson plans, support materials, and project ideas.

HGSE students Ola Jachtorowicz, Katie Yarnold, Annie Fu, Andrea Foo, and Lauren Simmons were the masterminds in creating this highly successful event. Nearly 20 graduate students from Harvard and MIT came together to create multiple solutions. Harvard Forest’s 2023 Winter Intern Andrea Foo will be taking these ideas and creating a new design framework for the resource archive in January.

Freshman Seminar Course Culminates with Student Symposium

Marking the bittersweet end to a semester of field trips to Harvard Forest’s 4,000-acre classroom, students from Harvard University’s Freshman Seminar Course “Global Change Ecology: Forests, Ecosystem Function, and the Future” presented final projects on December 5. Over the course of the semester, students learned about the critical role that forests play in a changing climate, with an immersive field trip format that this year included visits to many long-term ecological experiments, a science communication workshop and an environmental justice-focused lunch with a local Indigenous leader, and hands-on experience with the measurements that are being used at the Forest to assess forest change.

Associated with the course for 20 years, Dave Orwig, a Senior Ecologist at Harvard Forest, teaches the course and emphasizes the importance of small group discussions and connecting students with leading global change scientists.

Students’ final presentations discussed various issues related to climate change, including topics such as drivers of phenological change, maximizing carbon sequestration, changes in maple syrup production, and how to approach multidisciplinary issues such as nuclear energy production, protecting old growth forests, and responding to sea-level rise.

Applications Open for 2023 Summer Research Program in Ecology

Applications are now open for the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program in Ecology. Each summer, this immersive 11-week research experience hosts approximately 20 undergraduate students who live at Harvard Forest and conduct site-based research at the forefront of ecology under the mentorship of an affiliated scientist. Next year, the program will run from May 22 – August 4, 2023. All students who are U.S. citizens or international students who are currently studying at a U.S. institution are welcome to apply. Please contact hf-srpe@fas.harvard.edu with any questions about the program.  

Applications for the 2023 summer program can be submitted through our Harvard Forest’s online portal and are due by 9:00AM EST on Friday, February 3, 2023. 

Teachers Welcome: Schoolyard Ecology Winter Data Workshop

Friday, January 13th, 2023 8:30 am – 3 pm 

We are very excited to announce the return of our in-person Winter Data Workshop! This full-day workshop is open to all K12 teachers in the Schoolyard Ecology Program, and includes all study projects. Several tracks are available according to teachers’ level of experience working with ecology data, spanning from novice to veteran. Whether you need support entering your classroom data for the first time, or designing a scaffolded lesson plan to help students compare data across sites, we are here for you!

PDP’s are awarded to all participants.
The workshop will be at the Fisher Museum, Harvard Forest, 324 N. Main Street, Petersham, MA.
This workshop is sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s Long-Term Ecological Research Program and the Highstead Foundation.

Please register by Monday, January 9th, 2023 at 8:00 am.
Questions? Contact Schoolyard Ecology Program Coordinator, Katharine Hinkle, at katharinehinkle@fas.harvard.edu

Report: New England Forests Can Do More to Combat Climate Change

New England’s forests are an underrated asset in the fight against climate change, already sequestering the equivalent of 14 percent of carbon emissions across the six states and capable of much more. Through a menu of complementary strategies, forests could sequester at least 20 percent of carbon emissions while also enhancing critical co-benefits such as cleaner air and water, greater recreational opportunities, and jobs. The report was a collaborative effort between Harvard Forest, the Highstead Foundation, and KKM Environmental Consulting. 

Summarizing the current and possible future climate change mitigation potential of New England’s forests, the study, “New England’s Climate Imperative: Our Forests as a Natural Climate Solution,” found that while addressing climate change requires action on multiple fronts, the region’s forests already play a critical role in removing carbon from the atmosphere – and can do even more.

“As the world heads for climate devastation, we must use all the tools in our toolbox to reduce harmful carbon emissions and create a cleaner tomorrow,” said Geordie Elkins, Highstead Executive Director. “This work shines a bright spotlight on how forests can play an even greater role in addressing climate change.”

Researched and written by Highstead and its partners, the report seeks to inform the policy-making process by detailing the carbon benefits of 5 complementary pathways that, taken together, can greatly enhance the forests’ contributions to mitigating climate change. These five pathways are:

  • Avoided Deforestation: Change development practices to reduce annual rates of deforestation by 75 percent.
  • Wildland Reserves: Designate at least 10 percent of existing forests as forever wild, to allow more trees to grow old and accumulate and store additional carbon.
  • Improved Forest Management: Apply improved forest management practices to 50 percent of timberlands.
  • Mass Timber Construction: Replace concrete and steel with wood in 50 percent of eligible new institutional buildings and multi-family homes.
  • Urban and Suburban Forests: Increase tree canopy and forest cover by at least 5 percent in urban and suburban areas.

The report includes additional resources, including an analysis and summary of region-wide and state-level forest contributions, ongoing state climate actions, and future potential. 

“While each of these pathways is valuable on its own, our report finds that New England has an opportunity to accrue optimum climate benefits through combined implementation of these five complementary pathways,” said Kavita Kapur Macleod, KKM Environmental Consulting and a lead author of the report. “Our forests have the potential to absorb nearly 20 percent of GHG emissions now, expanding to 97 percent of emissions if all existing state-level emissions goals are met across the region. The ideal course is to take an ‘all of the above’ approach to address a climate crisis that is accelerating in pace, scale and impact.”

“Forests are already doing so much to mitigate climate change, and that’s without really trying,” said Jonathan R. Thompson, Research Director and Senior Ecologist at the Harvard Forest, a department of Harvard University, and a lead author. “What this report shows is how with even moderate changes in land-use practices we can increase the amount of carbon sequestered and stored in our landscape. To me, as I watch us fail to meet nearly every emissions reduction target, the case for including New England forests in our policy discussions just gets stronger and stronger. These are things we can do today and they come with a range of other benefits that are good for all of society.”     

New England forests already provide enormous and largely unrecognized climate mitigation benefits and are a globally important carbon sink. For example, they remove over 760,000 tons of air pollution annually, worth approximately $550 million in health benefits. Their value as a climate solution will grow as GHG reduction targets by the six New England states are met.

David Foster, a co-author of the report, Highstead board member, and Director Emeritus of Harvard Forest, adds, “In New England, nature is a major ally in our effort to address the global crises of climate, biodiversity, and human health. If we can conserve forest infrastructure and embrace the pathways outlined in our report, we can increase forest carbon sequestration and help all six states achieve their emissions targets. Lawmakers throughout New England should heed the recommendations in this study as they develop policies and strategies to meet their state climate goals.”

The study concluded that the cumulative potential carbon benefits of the five pathways amount to almost 360 million tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) over 30 years, or the equivalent of displacing the total 30-year energy consumption of nearly 1.3 million New England households.

Highstead and other study authors urged policymakers to prioritize New England’s forests as an essential natural solution as states move forward in the fight against climate change.

Landscape Modeling Workshop Blends Approaches to Projecting Forest Change

On October 19 and 20, 2022, Harvard Forest hosted a landscape modeling workshop centered on the LANDIS model. LANDIS – short for LAndscape DIsturbance and Succession – is a model that has been widely applied by Harvard Forest in the context of future forest conditions, alternative future scenarios, carbon storage, and other pressing policy issues for the state of Massachusetts and New England more broadly.

The workshop was organized by US Forest Service Research Ecologist and Bullard Fellow, Brian Sturtevant, and included both US Forest Service and university scientists from across New England, Wisconsin, and Missouri.  The goal of the meeting was to explore the potential to blend two very different approaches to projecting forest change – one based on the first principles of ecophysiology, and the second based on size-density relationships emerging from forestry and applied silviculture.

Consensus emerged that there was opportunity to leverage the strengths of each approach while addressing their individual weaknesses, and the group is now pursuing a pathway of model development that will blend the two approaches.  The workshop culminated in the Harvard Forest Lab Meeting presentation, “Projecting forest landscapes into the Anthropocene: Blending two paradigms in forest ecology”.

New Grant: Seeing and Hearing Indigenous Voices on the Land

A team of Harvard Forest scientists, Nipmuc leaders, Indigenous students, and educators has received a Culture Lab Innovation Fund grant to amplify the voices of local Indigenous communities and to enhance a sense of belonging for all Indigenous community members at Harvard. Led by Nipmuc leaders and Harvard Forest postdoc S. Joseph Tumber-Dávila, To Be Seen: Acknolwedging Indigneous Land in Green Spaces will build upon collaborative efforts between Nipmuc leaders and Harvard Forest, whose 4,000-acre campus occupies the unceded home territory of the Nipmuc people.

The project will tell stories about science, history, and land stewardship that are not bound by colonial fences and walls. New trail signs will acknowledge the vitality of Nipmuc stewardship of the land and ask the viewer to interrogate their own role in recognizing and amplifying the Nipmuc voice in future land stewardship decision-making in the region. The Harvard Forest research team is aware that this is only a small step towards righting past wrongs. “We know that the real work of decolonization is not accomplished by signs,” says Clarisse Hart, Director of Outreach and Education, “It’s accomplished by the willingness to engage in questions which will be the center of our signs.”

The questions will ask, “What does it mean to be here on the land? What does it mean to be seen?”

The new trail signage will be developed collaboratively by Nipmuc community members, Harvard Forest staff, and student interns over the coming academic year, and unveiled on the public trail in time for a communty discussion event in the spring of 2023.

Study Informs Federal Grants to Address U.S. Fuel Poverty

HF Director of Outreach & Education, Clarisse Hart, has co-authored a new study, Food, Medicine, or Heat? How Firewood Banks Leverage Natural Resources to Support Fuel Poor Households that will directly inform the distrubition of $8 mill in federal grants to combat heating fuel poverty in the US.

Until Hart began her research in 2016, grass-roots community wood banks – akin to food banks, but offering firewood – had been operating throughout the US, but practitioners were not connected to each other, and no research was available on how and where they operated, who they served, the challenges they encountered, and the kinds of resources that could help them improve their services to communities.

Hart and study collaborators from the University of Massachusetts, University of Wisconsin, and Duke University published the firewood bank study this summer, while simultaneously partnering up with leaders from the University of Maine, UMass Family Forest Research Center, Mass. Dept. of Conservation and Recreation, and the Alliance for Green Heat to inform the USDA’s new grant process for firewood bank support.

Hart is part of a core advisory group organizing a national wood bank summit and a national survey of wood bank operators, and providing support for decision-making about how grants can best serve communities, including Indigenous tribes. More information about the USDA grant, administered through the Alliance for Green Heat, can be found at firewoodbanks.org. Applications opened on October 15, 2022, and are received on a rolling basis.

Photo: Student volunteers from the University of Massachusetts stand in front of stacked wood at the Wood Bank in Petersham, Mass. Photo by Melissa LeVangie.

Book discussion & hike with author Lynda Mapes — November 6

Sunday, November 6 – 1:00-3:00pm

Learn how the effects of climate change can be seen in the life of a single, 100-year old oak, how Harvard Forest science has documented this change, and how you can become a backyard climate change detective through the practice of phenology — regular observance of seasonal changes in nature. Join Lynda Mapes, current Harvard Forest Bullard Fellow and author of Witness Tree: Seasons of Change with a Century-Old Oak, for a discussion and Q&A on the book. Lynda will be joined by John O’Keefe, Fisher Museum Coordinator (emeritus), who will discuss his unique phenological record that was the scientific basis for Witness Tree.

This event is a culmination of the East Quabbin Association of Libraries’ 2022 Community Read program.

Following a discussion in the Fisher Museum, Harvard Forest researchers will lead attendees on a hike to the Witness Tree itself (roughly a 20 minute walk) with lots of opportunities to learn more on the way.

Attendees with mobility issues or young children in tow will also have the option to stay closer to the research center to learn more about the surrounding trees, or drive to within a short walk to the Witness Tree.

Please meet at 1pm in the Fisher Museum located at 324 North Main Street, Petersham MA 01366. Appropriate clothing and footwear are highly recommended. Light refreshments will be served.

Registration is not required. See our Visit page to find directions and accessibility information. 

Watch the Witness Tree film, produced by Patrick Wellever and colleagues at the MIT Knight Science Journalism program:

2022 Annual Harvard Forest Ecology Symposium: Wednesday, October 12

2022 Annual Harvard Forest Ecology Symposium

Wednesday, October 12 from 9:00-5:00, Fisher Museum & Live-Stream via Zoom

A Tale of Two Research Forests: Hubbard Brook and Harvard Forest

We are excited to highlight and strengthen complementary work at the Harvard Forest and our LTER neighbor to the north. The day will feature talks by Harvard Forest and Hubbard Brook researchers, and a poster session.

This will be an in-person event, with an option to zoom in to listen to the talks.

In-person registration is closed.

Program

Questions?  Contact Audrey Barker-Plotkin (aabarker@fas.harvard.edu)

Code of Conduct