DOH!

The course I've just started is one I had to eventually withdraw from last year so I've already had some experience of the early activities, the first one being an investigation of temperature vs leaf fall. Of course, we know that temperature influences leaf fall but this is really just to gain experience of collecting our own data, doing stats tests, etc, rather than making any ground-breaking discoveries!

We are asked to use oak trees for this as they keep their leaves longer than most others - obviously, by this time of year many other trees are nearly bare. I did laugh last year at the woman in Saudi Arabia who was having some difficulty finding any (it's OK, she was laughing too and there are contingency plans for this sort of thing so no-one will get penalised).

I thought I, at least, was onto a winner as our village symbol is the oak but could I find any? I spent ages searching everywhere and was getting pretty worried before it dawned on me that I'd stood next to this line of oak trees (and there's loads more than you can see here!) every school day for over three years. Doh - what an idiot! At least I already know where to go this year, I suppose! :-D

Anyway, much to the children's disappointment, there was school today so it gave me the opportunity to take a few pictures for my write-up.



Slightly (un)interesting oak-related fact:

These are Quercus robur (also known as the common, pedunculate or English oak). The acorns have long stalks but the leaf stalks are virtually non-existent. The acorn and leaf stalks of Quercus petraea (the sessile or durmast oak) are the opposite. I have no idea why - isn't evolution funny?