Bridgette Boudreaux

Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests: Oak Trees Tell a Story of Resilience to High School Science Teacher

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what "the story of the trees" would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.  ~Author Unknown, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938

Long recognized as a symbol of strength and endurance, the oak has been the subject of stories, songs and proverbs throughout time.

But the tree has many tales of its own to tell, and through modern day science, researchers are able to listen and learn more about how the oaks survive the tests of Mother Nature.

In the summer of 2005, South-Doyle High School science teacher Bridgette Boudreaux was interested specifically in one of nature’s toughest tests for the oak: drought. The trees’ ability to withstand the stress from lack of water is an important indicator of how they will endure changing precipitation patterns. The growth and maturation of tree seedlings is vital to forest succession.

Boudreaux explored this topic for eight weeks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Laboratory Science Teacher Professional Development program. Administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, this program engages K-12 science teachers in ongoing research programs at DOE national laboratories with the goal of inspiring creative teaching of science to stimulate students’ interest.

As the story goes, the more mature oaks have stood up to the test. Two years ago, researchers from ORNL placed understory tents around four chestnut oak trees on the Oak Ridge Reservation, blocking 100 percent of rainfall. Yet the trees have shown a remarkable resilience. This could be a testament to their hardiness, or perhaps they have a water supply from deep underground that is able to sustain them.

To delve into this topic further, Boudreaux and her ORNL mentor Dr. Paul Hanson, studied 64 seedlings and stump sprouts growing beneath the larger oak trees. While the seedlings have limited root systems derived from seeds, plants sprouting from recently cut stumps have the benefit of an extensive established root system. Some seedling and stump sprouts were covered with tarps to block rainfall, while the rest served as the control group and were left unsheltered.

Boudreaux spent most of the hot summer days in the shade of the old oak trees, gathering the water-potential data from the young trees’ leaves to measure their dryness. And while there was no surprise ending to this chapter of the story, the results from the study have generated additional research questions and study possibilities.

The established root systems of the stump sprouts do appear to help them better endure the stress from lack of water, suggesting that scientists should explore underground water resources in more depth to determine the extent to which deep water sustains seedlings, trees, and ecosystems during drought.

Boudreaux has returned to her classroom at South-Doyle High School in Knoxville, Tenn., with not only additional funding for equipment and professional development activities, but more importantly, a renewed sense of purpose as she strives to help her students connect science to real life. Although she had previous research assignments at ORNL while an undergraduate at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, her most recent experience has had the most impact on her teaching.

“During my previous assignments, I had yet to be in the classroom, yet to see what it was like to teach in the real world,” Boudreaux explained. “But this past summer, through the classes and seminars I attended in addition to my research, I learned that any high school student can participate in meaningful scientific research of their own. In fact, I have already had a group of 28 students develop their own experiments and make presentations on them.”

As the well-known quote by Nelson Anderson goes, “The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” And Boudreaux is doing just that. Not only has she studied the survivability of the chestnut oaks, but she is sharing their story with future generations – planting examples in her young students’ minds of how important the science is to ensuring the shade of the trees is there for years to come.