FSML: Walk-up towers for research, education, communication, and outreach at the Harvard Forest

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Harvard University has been awarded a grant to construct two walk-up canopy towers and tramways for instrumentation at Harvard Forest, a 1,600-hectare field station for education and research. The towers will: (1) allow researchers, educators, and students to access canopies of hemlock- and oak-dominated forests; (2) be equipped with permanent arrays of environmental sensors; (3) provide a hub for a wireless communications network linking Harvard Forest research data and facilities to university researchers, K-12 classrooms, and anyone else who is interested in learning more about forest ecosystems; and (4) create a "platform-in-the-sky" so visitors to Harvard Forest can learn about forest ecology from the ground up. Research in forest canopies is at the frontier of ecological research, and Harvard Forest is a leader in studies of temperate-forest canopies. These two canopy towers will: create new opportunities for research and education; enable data from canopy-based experiments to be streamed onto the Internet in real time; and forge stronger linkages among existing installations, including: the 25-year-old Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Site; a 25-year-old Summer Research Program in Ecology; a 35-hectare Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory forest dynamics plot; and the core site of the Northeast Domain of the National Ecological Observatory Network. For more information about Harvard Forest, please see the website at http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu.