Why are we doing it?
To find out what is living among the branches of the tree
How long will it take?
3 days
What do we need?
2 litre bottle
String
Teaspoon
Sugar
Water
Cotton wool
Corrugated card
Pencil
Blue tack
How do we do it?
Cut the bottle in half so tha thte top half can be turned upside down to sit in it.
Place a bit of corrugated card in the bottle to prevent concussion of any creature falling in.
Put one teaspoon of sugar and cotton woll soaked in water in the bottle for creature nourishment.
Make two holes in the bottom half of the container opposite each other by placing a ball of blue tack on the inside and stabbing a pencil through from the outside.
Remove the blue tack and join the holes by tying a piece of string between them.
Hang the bottle from a tree branch.
After 3 days investigate the contents of the branch trap to find out what inhabits the tree.
Results
The branch trap did not work as well as anticipated and unfortunately proved inconclusive.
We can run transpiration tests to to find out where moisture exits the leaves.
How long will it take?
5 days
What do we need?
4 sandwich bags
4 15cm lengths of string
Vaseline
Millimetre measuring container
How do we do it?
Pick four different leaves on the tree
Place Vaseline on the top of one leaf
Place Vaseline on the underside of the second leaf
On the third leaf place Vaseline on the top and the underside of the leaf
Don’t have any Vaseline on the final leaf as this will act as the control
Place a sandwich bag over each of the four leaves
Tie the bags tightly onto the tree using the string
Come back after 5 days to investigate the results
Pour the contents of each bag separately into the millimetre measuring container
My results?
That most moisture comes from the underside of the leaf. Stomata are the holes that allow moisture to escape from the leaves. They are concentrated mostly on the underside of the leaf.
Control – 7ml
Vaseline on top – 4ml of water
Vaseline on bottom – 2ml of water
Vaseline on both sides – 1ml of water
Chromatography is used to identify the range of colour in the leaf and takes about 27 hours.
What do we need?
Healthy, green leaves
Jam jar
Pestle and mortar
Nail varnish remover
Kitchen paper
Pen
How do we do it?
Take a few single leaves and place them in the mortar.
Using a twisting action, pound down on the leaves with the pestle to remove some of the leaf’s moisture and to break down the leaf’s walls.
Places the crushed leaves in a jam jar.
Pour the nail varnish remover (which contains acetone) on top.
Place the lid on top of the jar and shake.
After 24 hours wrap a piece of kitchen paper around a pen so that some kitchen paper reaches the liquid in the jar when the pen is placed horizontally over the top of the jar.
Leave for 2 hours.
Monitor the colour on the kitchen paper.
My results?
This leaf just contained a few levels of the colour green.
The flower of the Ash tree is dark purple, without petals, and is wind-pollinated (i.e. it does not need bees to help it fertilise). Unusually, in spring, its flowers appear before its leaves do.
The Ash tree is an unusual plant for another reason, though: it is possible for an ash tree to have both male and female characteristics, and therefore male and female flowers – the female flowers are a little longer than the male ones. What’s more, although individual trees usually produce all-male or all-female flowers, both can occur on the same tree – and it is possible for a tree that is all male one year to produce all female flowers the next, and vice-versa.
The Beatles broke up – and all of them released a solo album
Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix both died of drug overdoses, both aged just 27 years old
Maya Angelou wrote ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’
Rhodesia won independence from Britain, was renamed Zimbabwe
An explosion on board Apollo 13 risked the lives of three men
Ireland’s Catholic Bishops lifted the ban on Catholics enrolling and attending courses in Trinity College
Anti-Apartheid protestors held demonstrations against the South African rugby team as they played Ireland in Lansdowne Road
The Brazil team – perhaps the greatest soccer squad ever to play the game – won the World Cup, beating Italy 4-1 in the final
Cork and Kerry won the All-Ireland Hurling and Football Titles respectively
Charles J Haughey was sacked as Minister for Finance after the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, accuses him of involvement in importing arms for Republican paramilitaries in the North
Ash timber is hard, tough and very hard-wearing, with a coarse open grain. The light colour and attractive grain of ash wood make it popular in modern furniture such as chairs, dining tables, doors and flooring.
Ash is the only wood used for the manufacture of hurleys, used in hurling. Hurleys are manufactured from the butt log (the bottom 1.5m of the tree trunk). Unfortunately, due to the lack of available ash in Ireland, over 75% of the timber needed to produce the 350,000 hurleys required for the game annually must be imported, mostly from eastern European countries. Because of its high flexibility, shock-resistance and resistance to splitting, Ash wood is also used for tennis rackets and snooker cues, as well as being used in the handles of tools like hammers, and for making walking sticks.
The flower of the Ash tree is dark purple, without petals, and is wind-pollinated (i.e. it does not need bees to help it fertilise). Unusually, in spring, its flowers appear before its leaves do.
The Beatles broke up – and all of them released a solo album