Update: March 1, 2012
Please Report
Your Sightings!
Report Your Sightings
To celebrate 11 years of Test Garden data at one school, we will dig in to find out what all that data can bring. Thanks to Cape Cod Academy, you can sharpen your pencils and hone your research skills! Then get out your treasure trove of historical data. Study an isotherm map to see how bands of temperatures cross northern North America.

This Week's Update Includes:

Image of the Week
garden locations map
Credit: June Chamberlain auger
Dig In
News: Garden Highlights
What I've Learned
"I have learned that maps can be all different kinds. I also learned how to dissect a tulip bulb."

Emerging Tulips
"They are shaped like teardrops."

Blooming Tulips
"We think they opened slowly like being born or growing."

recording
Learning from maps
Explore: What Can We Learn from Long Term Data?
The Test garden data you have collected over the years contains a treasure trove for research. Data can be organized in a graph where patterns and trends are easy to see. Maps, photographs, and weather records can also help by adding pieces of information to each year's garden results. Questions arise and research expands:

"How do emerge and bloom dates compare across the years of Test gardens?," or "What might have caused our garden to emerge so late this year?"

Collect and analyze your own historical data each year in the Test Garden, but first, sharpen your pencils and hone your research skills! Try exploring garden data collected from 2001-2012 at Cape Cod Academy in Osterville, Massachusetts (41.63, -70.38). What will their data reveal? Dig in!

garden locations map garden data graph analysis handout
Garden Map Data Graph Analyze Data

Test Gardens: Maps and Journal Page
The map is quickly being taken over by green! Over one-third of our Test gardens are now emerged. How does this early spring weather affect your garden? Is it emerging, or is it hidden under a pile of snow? Whether you are waiting patiently for your blooms to open, or carefully measuring your emerging shoots, we are all focused on the Test garden!
tulip gardens North America tulip gardens North America journal
Journal
North America
(map | animation | sightings)
Eurasia
(map | animation | sightings)

Come Back for the next Test Garden update March 8, 2012.