WASILLA — Tim Lunt teaches science from the front lines of climate change.

This year students from Mat-Su Career Tech High School are participating in the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment project. GLOBE allows students from around the world to collect standardized data from their natural environment. The data is then used by researchers and scientists to compare year-to-year changes in different locations.

Lunt’s students are collecting data on tree buds.

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“Getting the kids out of the class and into the field as much as possible hopefully increases their interest in science,” Lunt said. “If we can spur just a few kids’ interest, then we’ve done our job.”

The study is funded by grants from Toyota and Toshiba totaling more than $20,000, but money for the program runs out at the end of this year, Lunt said.

“We have all the equipment; that’s the expensive part,” he said. “We just need funding to go out and do the research.”

Waiting for the burst

For the study, the students measure when the buds burst, what the water content is when they burst and how long it takes for the leaf to become fully grown.

In the fall, his classes mark their test sites on their school campus and just off the Palmer Hay Flats access point at Cottonwood Creek.

The trees are identified with colored ribbons and tags.

The students return to the test sites in the spring before the buds burst. They continue to make their measurements as often as possible until complete green-up — twice a week at the school site and once a week at the Flats.

Following the instructions from the GLOBE website, students measure the height of the tree using a clinometer and the circumference and diameter using a logger’s tape. They mark the exact coordinates with a GPS unit and take pictures of the surroundings in all four cardinal point directions.

For the first part of the study, the students mark a particular branch and note the date when the buds begin to burst.

“The bursting began on Monday when we had 16 hours of sunlight,” Lunt said. “That seems to be the magic number.”

Besides sunlight, the temperature largely determines when the buds begin to burst, Lunt said. If it takes longer, the spring has been cooler. If it happens sooner, the weather has been warmer.

Sharing the knowledge

The bud burst dates are entered into the GLOBE project, and researchers use it to track global climate change.

The second part of the study measures the time from bud burst to the end of green up — when the leaves are at their full length. On the same marked branch, students record the date and length of the buds. Unfortunately, final growth does not happen until after the school year is over, but the information they do get is recorded in GLOBE.

“Not only can scientists use the data, but we can compare our data in the classroom to other data from schools at latitude 61,” Lunt said. “Maybe there’s some school in Russia that we can look at. There are 96 countries participating in the program.”

The one part of the study not included in the GLOBE program is measuring the moisture content of buds when they burst. The students pick two trees and collect 10 buds from each. Back at the school, the buds are weighed on a scale accurate down to the hundredth of a gram. The buds are cooked at 140 degrees for 48 hours and weighed again. The difference in weight is the water content of the bud.

“We should see a spike in water content right before bud burst,” Lunt said. “Then we know if we hit that number next year, we should start seeing bursts.”

Besides the benefit of the data to the greater scientific community, the point of the program is to show students research science has practical applications, Lunt said. Besides the tree bud research, Lunt teaches students tree identification, how to estimate the quantity of wood if the area was to be logged, and how to test a birch tree for its sugar content.

Looking for funding

Lunt already has an application in for a grant from Hewlett Packard to fund the program next year. If he wins, the school will receive $270,000 in cash and technology, more than enough for Lunt to start dreaming big.

“I would like to have a computer in front of each student everyday,” he said. “We could get a CAD program and diagram the test site in 3D. We could have these kids on the GLOBE site everyday. But it all comes down to the money.”

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or  352-2252.