Workshop: Trees of Your Neighborhood, Park, and Schoolyard

Sponsoring Organization: Natural History Society of Maryland

This team project workshop introduces participants to the native, naturalized, and planted species of trees growing within their communities. The purpose of the class is to introduce vocabulary, tools, and techniques used to identify trees and to develop strategies for identifying trees found in the diverse urban, suburban, and rural communities where the participants live. Under the guidance of an experienced botanist, participants will learn features used in tree identification. Field studies will include trips to local parks and neighborhoods. And teams will assemble a checklist of the trees of their chosen site.

In this workshop you will:

• Learn the characteristics of 40 common tree species.
• Learn the characteristics of common tree families.
• Learn technical vocabulary of woody plant description.
• Examine, sort, and identify twigs, leaves, flowers, and fruits of trees.
• Use taxonomic keys and other tree identification tools.
• Work with your team to identify trees in a discovery site of their choice and prepare a checklist.
• Share their checklist with a community group that surrounds the discovery site.

Please join us as we discover the trees of backyards, parks, and schoolyards.

Place: St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church–Education Building; Spruce and Overlea Avenues, Baltimore, MD 21206.

Dates and Times: Classroom sessions – Mondays May 9, May 16, May 23, June 6, June 13, and June 20 – from 6:30 PM to 8:15 PM. Field Trips – Sundays May 22 and June 12 from 12:30 to 3:30 PM

To register: Send email to nhsm@verizon.net and request application and syllabus from The Natural History Society of Maryland, Inc. Class limited to 12 teams.

Cost: Teams of two people: $410 per team; $350 per team if both participants are paid members of the Natural History Society of Maryland.

Instructor: Charlie Davis is a professional field ecologist who specializes in rare and endangered species. His field work has found him searching for rare plants on islands in the Chesapeake Bay, on the cliffs of Great Falls, and in sidewalk cracks of Baltimore neighborhoods. For ten years he was an instructor for Johns Hopkins University Odyssey Program Certificate of Environmental Studies, where he taught courses in plant identification techniques and tree identification.