Cloud Forest

From May 16-20 of this year, the seventh grade teachers moved their classrooms to the mountain village of Jalcolmulco in the eastern state of Veracruz. For science this meant lessons taught in a piece of remaining cloud forest in the Francisco Javier Clavijero Botanic Garden in nearby Jalapa. Entering the cool, shaded ecosystem, one's attention is immediately grabbed by the change in temperature and the smells of moist earth and rotting leaves. It was the perfect place to take our plot studies outdoors and practice what the students had learned at school.

Just as they had done in our land laboratory in Mexico City, students recorded measurements and made observations about the abiotic environment: map coordinates, elevation, soil temperature, air temperature at surface and waist levels, soil texture, amount of sunlight. Focusing on square meter plots, students made an inventory of plants and drew representative examples of what they saw. It was inspiring to work

in such a healthy habitat and students took the task seriously.

Here are some of the data that were recorded on May 17 between 9:30 and 11:30 am:

Latitude: 19 degrees, 30.755' N

Longitude: 96 degrees, 66.603' W

Elevation: 1,324 m

Temperatures

Soil: 20 degrees C

Air at soil surface: 21 degrees C

Air at waist level: 20 degrees C

Cloud Cover

It was completely overcast and as the morning adv

anced, a light rain developed.

Such data is rather typical of cloud forests which are found in the mountains at tropical latitudes. In this case we were in the Sierra Madre Oriental in the watershed that feeds rivers which empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The abundant moisture creates a favorable habitat for a number of plants with sunlight being the main limiting factor. As a result, cloud forests are home to an array of epiphytic plants, that is plants that grow on plants to reach for light.