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The forestry test at Nats was incredibly hard...I believe it was 105 questions (21 stations, 5 questions per station), and 2 minutes per station. Also, it seemed like every other tree was a pine/hemlock/cedar...we probably left half of the test blank and still got 20th.

I came out of forestry fine, but then cried in the team room. I felt so devastated, since I felt like I comletely screwed the team over by failing the test and getting in the bottom 1/2 of teams. I caused so much craziness... Over 14th place. I was so amazed when I got the scoresheet, and my partner was like, "I told you we were in the top 15!" When I heard kids talking about how easy it was, I got freaked out by the fact that we didn't finish one station...

Did anyone catch the tamarack (eastern larch)? My partner, did, I wouldn't have. I'm still not sure how they managed to dry and glue a larch to a piece of paper....?

silverheart7 wrote:I'm still not sure how they managed to dry and glue a larch to a piece of paper....?

Leaf preservation is fairly simple. Most likely, the specimen you saw at Nats was pressed (between pages of a book, or otherwise), then glued with special glue... or lightly rubber-cemented onto the piece of paper. However, leaf pressing can be deceptively easy and actually, quite challenging, especially when you factor in moisture, temperature, irregular leaf shapes (3D-wise) and possibilities of insect attacks, mold infestations, discoloring, etc.

But it was funny, because the way it was glued was intended to show the 'tufts' of a larch, but it was somewhat misleading. I don't really know how to explain it...

I'm really going to miss this event

silverheart7 wrote: I'm really going to miss this event

I'll have to agree with you on that one... I don't think I've ever loved an event as much as Forestry out of all of the 11 events I've ever tried! (Of course, other than Water Quality, though... it's a very, very close second.)

CulturallyScientific wrote:

silverheart7 wrote: I'm really going to miss this event

I'll have to agree with you on that one... I don't think I've ever loved an event as much as Forestry out of all of the 11 events I've ever tried! (Of course, other than Water Quality, though... it's a very, very close second.)

Yeah same. That forestry test was the most fun test I ever took in my life. I'm so sad that the event's going away :'(

Awesome test, extremely well written and challenging. the idea of getting former national champions to write tests was brilliant.

I definitely missed a couple of questions on my side of the list, the one thing that comes to mind is that I IDed two samples as tupelo. One of them was definitely it because it was half bright red, but the other one probably wasn't. It was obovate and entire, anyone know what I'm talking about? xD

@waywardwind: congrats on getting first! that's amazing.

silverheart7 wrote:When I heard kids talking about how easy it was, I got freaked out by the fact that we didn't finish one station...

To clarify, I meant we didn't finish any of the stations! I just realized how that sounded. I don't think our answer sheet was half filled...

Ha. I'm not really going to miss Forestry that much. If Water Quality goes away, though... ;-;

Actually, yesterday in Washington D.C., I saw a yellow-poplar/tulip-tree, and not only was I happy to know what it was (our tour guide didn't), but I got a leaf from it. That's always been one of my favorite leaves, with the totally awesome mulberries in a distant second. It was pretty cool. But yeah, I'm mostly looking forward to going full steam ahead in Entomology.

At Wright State, I got a sample of an Ailanthus (Tree of Heaven), and I was thrilled. I'm a bit of a forestry nerd, since it's my dream career If anyone else went on the nature tour,you should have said hi to me I was the Asian girl from Gelinas with long, dark hair. I got a few really nice specimens of different trees, but then my forestry partner murdered them (or something). I asked him to hold onto them over night. I assumed he knew to press them or at leat keep them moist so they wouldn't wilt, but they were 100% dead the next morning... Oh well