The Forestry guide will be released during ScioCamp 2022.

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Course content was made from ScioVirtual Forestry lead faculty, including:

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Tatiana Liang, rising Junior @ Temple City High School in CA. 4th year in Science Olympiad. Competes in Disease Detectives, Anatomy, Codebusters, Elastic Launched Gliders, Herpetology (derogatory), Loves plants but is allergic to them (cries inside)

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Ellen Tang, Has been in SciOly for 8 years and counting! Events: Anatomy (A is for Anatomy, No Bones About It), Food Webs, Egg Drop, Barge Building, Pasta Mobile, Fossil, Find/Fossils, Heredity/Designer Genes, Write It Do It, Write It CAD It, Cell Biology, Codebusters. Passions truly lie in the tiny biologies, but trees are cool too. Decorated medalist, but only in WIDI. Will become your favorite #swiftie

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Hayley Tang, I’ve officially been in Science Olympiad for half of my life as of yesterday (8 years, do the math). Events: Anatomy, Write It, Do It, Write It, CAD It, Experimental Design, Codebusters (div C), Anatomy, Write It, Do It, Solar System, Mission Possible (div B), A is for Anatomy, No Bones About It, Write It, Do It, Starry Starry Night, Egg Drop, Pasta Mobile, Mystery Box (div A). I play 6 instruments (and like to sing!). Human anatomy is my thing, but trees are cool too! Biggest SciOly flex: I have 1 of each of the 1st-6th place medals in Write It, Do It (and 2 3rd place medals from States!)

Getting Started

Copy of Forestry Day 1 for Students.pdf17100.6KB

Someone asked me if I could advise them on which tree guide to purchase for next year. I have a few suggestions (in no particular order):

1. National Audubon Society Trees of North America

Pros: Very good pictures, recognized by most experts

Cons: you might have to buy two of them, one for the west and one for the east. That will take up your two total field guides allotted for the event and might make it harder for you to find things.

2. Trees: DK Handbook, by Allen J. Coombes

Pros: I actually have read this one and like most DK books it makes everything pretty simple to understand. It does have a guide at the beginning with ID tips which is helpful too. Its a nice book.

Cons: Has less tree species than the Audubon one

3. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees: Second Edition, by David More and John White

Pros: This is the book that got me into trees. Illustrations are beautiful and the information is very detailed. Covers around 2,000 species and is overall a very nice book. You can tell a lot of effort was invested into it's creation.

Cons: Is bigger than my Chemistry textbook and weighs more than the Bible, so I don't know if you can use it as a field guide. Species are categorized slightly randomly so its hard to find things. Also it only has illustrations and no actual pictures so might be hard for ID. Covers trees from all over the world, not just North America so you probably can't use more than half of it for the event. I would just keep it around for aesthetic purposes and information.

4. The Sibley Guide to Trees, by David Allen Sibley

pros: good leaf illustrations, 600 species

Cons: doesn't often show tree silhouette, uses imperial system and not metric system, illustrations are inconsistent, does not have a glossary/key

If I have read the book, the information above is my own opinion of the book and whether I think it is useful to you or not. If not then the rating is based off of Amazon reviews. Choose whatever you'd like, it will probably benefit you more than not having a field guide to work with.

I personally do not own any of these because I am lacking in money and a credit card and am unable to buy them off of Amazon T-T so I have to comb my school and local libraries for these and end up keeping them well past their return dates. Unfortunately my school is closed for the summer and made me return the DK guide I had, so for this course I am relying off of Google and other books that I am fortunate to own.