Last week we got to go on a field trip for work! We did the team building type stuff but we also got to check out the Harvard Forest – one of the oldest and most intensively studied forests in North America.

 

The Harvard Forest is home to the Fisher Museum and contains incredibly detailed dioramas of various forest landscapes showing landscape history and use, conservation, and forest management of the New England forests. The dioramas are so detailed, they are compared to the forest equivalent of the glass flowers at the HMNH.

 

Deborah Kaspari, a Bullard Scholar at the Harvard Forest is an artist who draws “Historical Sites and Forest Succession” showed us some of her work in documenting the forest landscape and also shared some of the history of the land.

There are some trails to walk in the forest and we were lucky enough to have Clarisse Hart, a Harvard Forest Researcher and Outreach staff member. She showed us some notable aspects along the path such as Chestnut Trees, a SODAR (sonic detection and ranging) tower, previous lightning strikes, etc. Pictures and sound from our field trip are below!