Thanks Geometry

So remember when you were in math class and you wondered how any of the lesson was going to be relevant to your daily life? Then your teacher assured you that geometry came in useful allll the time, but had a difficult time presenting hard evidence?

I had a great day on Saturday because I finally found a useful application for a little geometry when Aaron and I went on a Big Tree Hike. A park ranger lead us through the swamp to find Champion Trees. A champion tree is the biggest tree of a species. There is a National and a State champion list. Most of the champions we saw lived in the old growth forest and were anywhere from 16 - 20+ feet in diameter, easily over 140 feet tall and about 200 to 1,00 years old. Very Big trees.

This picture gives a pretty good sense of what we were walking through and around. You'll notice the smart folks - like the ranger and ten year old girl- wore waders, a much better choice than our sneakers.

The ranger showed us how to measure tree height from the ground. Enter geometry. You take a right angle, walk far enough back til the 45 degree angle lines up with the crown of the tree and the ground, then measure the distance to the base of the tree. That distance should be equal to the tree height. (The ground needs to be level for the measurement to be accurate) If you want to get a little tricky and use some trig, you can use other angles so you don't have to walk so much. If you want a more thorough explanation you can go here.

Here's a picture of the tree we measured. It took more than three pictures to capture the whole length.

We also learned about a group that's done a lot of great research on these old trees. They call themselves the Eastern Native Tree Society or ENTS (like in Tolkien) for short. That made us laugh.

While we considered taking Reuben on the 5 hour hike, we eventually decided against it and left him to play with his cousin. This is what we came back to. So a good time was had by all.