We love pulling out our Christmas decorations each year and talking about our science ornaments we’ve shared over the last 5 years on She Loves Science. This year we wanted to do a nature ornament and decided to honor our Christmas tree by studying the wood slice from it’s trunk. We always get a fresh cut to help the tree get more moisture.
What do you need: Your own Christmas tree trunk wood slice or store bought wood slices (found at Hobby Lobby), sandpaper, white acrylic paint, permanent marker, hot glue gun, and decorative ribbon
How you do it: First, we counted the dark rings of our Christmas tree and were amazed that it was 12 years old! We discussed that a tree adds new layers to it’s trunk every spring and summer and noted some rings were wider apart than others. We also saw knots in the wood slice and decided that is where a branch formed during that year.
(Note: It was a little harder to count the rings of the store bought wood slices since it was sanded smooth and we could only conclude the age of that tree section since we could not tell if it was a trunk or branch cross section.)
After sanding our tree slice, we were ready to paint, write ‘Heaven and nature sing’, and hot glue our ribbon as a hanger.
What’s the science: A tree trunk tells you the story of the tree’s life with most notably the rings that are added every spring and summer. The spring growth has lighter rings when there was more moisture while the summer growth has darker rings when there was less moisture. A great resource to learn more about trees is at the Arbor Foundation website here. We definitely appreciate our Christmas tree even more after learning more about it’s life before it came into our home!
You can find our science ornaments from years past and other Christmas science here!
Have a Merry Christmas!
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