Trees and woodland are a central way of describing and understanding key aspects of physical geography at a local scale, which can be used as a ‘way in’ to work on biomes and vegetation belts. This investigation can also be used to develop pupils’ fieldwork and map skills which are also key elements of the KS2 National Curriculum.

Download this page as a PDF

Fieldwork to investigate tree size and species

Aim: to set up an investigation to describe tree size and species in the school grounds or local area.

Method:

• Using relevant scale OS maps, identify a suitable area to investigate. This is an opportunity to talk to pupils about risk assessment as well as how to go about choosing a suitable area of study. You could investigate the trees on your school site or broaden this out to a study of trees in your local area.
• Meet a tree! In pairs, person A is blindfolded. Person B carefully leads their partner to a tree that they are going to investigate. Make sure pupils think carefully about their safety when they are guiding them. The blindfolded partner should ‘meet the tree’. They can touch, smell, listen to the tree to get a feel for it. Return to the starting point. Carefully spin person A around then take off their blindfold. They should try to find their tree. Once both partners have had a go, choose one of the two trees to concentrate on.
• Pupils should firstly measure the girth of the tree using a tape measure. You can use the instructions from the Woodland Trust to help: How to record the girth of a tree – Ancient Tree Inventory
• Pupils should then make an estimate of the height of the tree. Stand with your back to the tree and walk away 10 paces. Bend over with legs straight and slightly wider than hip width apart. Look through your legs – can you see the top of the tree? If yes, measure from the bottom of the tree to your feet. This is a rough estimate of the tree’s height. If no, walk another few paces and try again.

• Use the tree identification sheets from the Woodland Trust to try to identify the species of your tree: Tree ID for Kids – Nature Detectives – Woodland Trust

Data collection:

Discuss with pupils how they are going to collect their data. As each pair will be focusing on one tree they may simply want to annotate a diagram of a tree – which they could sketch – with their measurements and findings. They will also need to record the location of their tree so that they can compare it with the results from other pairs.

Questions:

• What might live in the tree?
• How might it look in different seasons?

Data presentation:

As a class, create a guided tour or treasure hunt of the different trees that pupils have investigated, using images, QR code information and a map with instructions. This could be done using the Tree Council’s tree trail app Create a #TreeTrail near you – TiCL – The Tree Council. Perhaps parents could be invited to take the tour as part of an open morning.

Application:

Other questions that pupils might want to investigate include:

• Why are trees important?
• What percentage of our local area is covered by trees?
• Do certain species only grow in certain locations?
• Where is the best place to plant a tree?
• Who (really) cares for our trees?
• How and why are trees being lost? What can be done about it?

The Geographical Association (GA) has worked closely with the Field Studies Council (FSC) to develop these resources.