SUNLIGHT THROUGH AUTUMN TREES PORTABLE
SUNLIGHT THROUGH AUTUMN TREES PLUS

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activityĬurriculum Links: English, Science, Critical and Creative thinking If you have time, you might like to turn this ‘conversation’ into a picture storybook that helps explain the process of leaves changing colour to younger audiences. What questions might the younger tree ask? How could the adult explain the process in a way that the younger tree understands and makes it sound exciting? The adult tree tries to comfort the younger tree and explains the process so that it is not so scared. The younger tree is experiencing autumn for the first time and is scared of what is happening to it. Write a conversation between an adult southern beech tree and a baby southern beech tree. Where do Nothofagus cunninghamii, gunnii and moorei live and what are they?.What are two reasons why trees lose their leaves in autumn?.Women trapped in mountain of ‘cornflake’ algae Secret ‘dinosaur tree’ experiment a successĪmazon fires: who will help save the rainforest? nutrients: substances that nourish living things.hemisphere: half of the world either north or south of the equator.chaotic: in a state of complete confusion.Some people like to rake up the leaves and others leave them to compost where they fall. Media_camera A big, mature deciduous tree could have hundreds of thousands of leaves, almost all of which fall in autumn. One type of natural chemicals left are carotenoids, which is what makes carrots orange. The colours we can see in autumn are from what is left behind in the leaf and this ranges from yellow to orange to red, maroon and brown. When chlorophyll is broken down in the leaf, the green colour disappears. A deciduous tree breaks down the chlorophyll in the leaves and sends the nutrients down to the roots to be stored underground until things hot up again. When autumn comes, with shorter, cooler days, deciduous trees know it’s time to prepare for winter. In summer, when it is very sunny and warm, plants photosynthesise a lot. Chlorophyll turns sunlight into tree food through a process called photosynthesis. The leaves capture the sunlight with a natural chemical called chlorophyll, which makes the leaves green.

SUNLIGHT THROUGH AUTUMN TREES PLUS

Plants grow by taking in sunlight through their leaves, plus water and nutrients from the soil.

It’s much more efficient than letting a whole lot of goodness fall to the ground. This is the tree’s way of saving up nutrients* for next spring and summer. Many trees in very cold places lose their leaves before winter to save up nutrients and minimise damage from ice and snow. If the leaves stayed on a tree, temperatures a long way below zero could freeze the leaves (which would wreck them and then they’d fall off anyway) and a build up on the leaves of snow or ice, which weighs a lot, could break the tree’s branches. Losing leaves is a way of preparing to survive the winter. These are more common in colder parts of the world – mostly in the northern hemisphere* - where the winters are freezing and there’s a lot of snow. Trees that lose their leaves in just a few weeks over autumn are called deciduous trees. WHY DO TREES LOSE THEIR LEAVES IN AUTUMN? We wondered too, so we did some research and raked up a pile of fascinating facts. Why do leaves change colour and fall in autumn?

SUNLIGHT THROUGH AUTUMN TREES PORTABLE

There are so many thousands of leaf-looking tourists, councils organise extra parking, parking attendants, coffee vans and portable toilets. Each autumn, thousands of tourists flock to a few special towns across Australia to look at millions of colourful leaves.

Sunlight through autumn trees