Colder Soils in a Warmer World?
Appropriate for advanced high school ecology and environmental science classes. Climate scientists predict that in the future there will be less snowfall on average, and a later onset of the winter snowpack. Knowing that snow is a natural insulator, scientists have been researching how less snow might affect life on the forest floor. Students graph and analyze snow depth and soil frost data to explore how a decrease in snowpack might affect forest floor dynamics.