Questions to think about and research:

What are the fastest growing living things?

What are other ways of measuring the growth of a tree?

What causes the rings in the tree slices?

Were all rings in one tree slice the same distance apart? What might have caused a difference in the width of the rings? Were there other things that students noticed that caused a change in shape or features? (branches, funny irregular spots, non-round trunk shapes?)

What other things show rings as evidence of growth?

• Mussel growth rings
• Desert tortoises
• Box turtles
• Blandings' Turtles
• Vertebrate bones also show areas of variable growth and, in some cases, rings. Kristi Curry Rogers' work has used microscope slides of fossil bone and slides of birds' bones such as ostriches to compare spurts of growth.
• Fish
• T. rex!

Please contact us with your questions and suggestions for other follow-up activities. , 651-221-4554.

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