Biodiversity is a popular concept that means different things to different people. At the same time, schoolyards offer a chance to measure and manage for biodiversity to achieve societal goals. In this study we compared biodiversity at two Virginia middle schools and two natural areas. Middle-school students presented their data over the Internet and answered questions about biodiversity. In addition we wished to test the following hypotheses:

1. Natural areas provide greater biodiversity than school campuses.

2. The school with the greatest number of trees will have the greatest biodiversity.

Procedure:

In the fall of 1999, five Virginia Middle Schools participating in the Forestry Outreach (FORSite) program of Virginia Tech were invited to inventory trees on their school grounds and send their data for analysis. Two schools (Midlothian and Auburn) returned data. Two more schools (Halifax and Spratley) were inventoried by a faculty member from Virginia Tech. The Midlothian and Auburn sites represented natural areas located nearby the school. The other two sites represented campus areas. Undergraduate students in the College of Natural Resources visited schools to assist and check accuracy of the data.

At campus sites, all trees greater than 5” diameter at breast height (DBH) were identified and counted. At the Little River natural area two 1/10^th acre plots were measured, with all trees greater than 5” DBH measured and counted. At the Midlothian Middle School natural area one representative 2/10 acre plot was measured and counted. Data was summarized by students and reported over the internet.

Auburn Middle School

Halifax Middle School

Midlothian Middle School - data from 2000

Spratley Middle School

Students were asked the following questions to initiate critical thinking:

1.   Which school had the most species? The most trees?

2.   Which is the best indicator of diversity, a) the number of species, b) the number of trees, or c) a combination of the two?

3.   Which site do you think is most diverse?

4.   Based on this sample, which do you think is more diverse, a school campus or a natural area?

In order to compare diversity between schools, Simpson’s Diversity Index was calculated by students at Midlothian Middle School using hand-held calculators.

Results:

Spratley Middle School in Hampton, VA had the greatest number of species, while Halifax Middle School had the greatest number of trees. Although students predicted that Halifax would have the greatest diversity based on the number of trees, the school with the highest Simpson’s Diversity Index was Spratley. (Table 1.)

Table 1. Biodiversity Data Collected by Students at Four Middle Schools in Virginia. 

Conclusions:

Biodiversity means different things to different people. Most middle school students declared the school with the greatest number of trees to be the most diverse, yet calculated diversity proved otherwise. Our data proved both hypotheses to be false. In our small sample, natural areas did not have greater diversity than school campuses, and the greatest number of trees did not result in the greatest diversity. However, our study did not use uniform sampling techniques, so the comparison between schools is not ideal.

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