Signs of Spring: Report Your Observations!

Sunlight and the Seasons

*Maps by*
Macalester College Geography Department
How do trees know it's spring? What happens if the leaves come out too early? How do my leaves fit into the food chain? Is it true that some songbirds arrive from the Tropics just as the leaves emerge on my trees? We hope you'll explore these and other questions by reporting when leaves emerge on your trees.		Try This! Create a Record of Spring in your Schoolyard How Old is Your Tree?
How to Participate in Journey North's Leaf-out Study
Sugar Maple	Please report when leaves on trees of any of these 4 species emerge. Our definition of "leaf-out" is... When leaves are the size of a quarter.	Flowering Dogwood
Redbud		Quaking Aspen

Steps:

Adopt a local tree of one of the species above.
Visit your adopted tree on a regular basis. Sketch the buds on the same small branch each time you visit.
Watch the bud open, the tree bloom, and the leaves emerge.
Report to Journey North when your tree's leaves are the size of a U.S. (or Canadian) quarter—our definition of "leaf-out."
Using Leaf-out data reported by others, map spring's progress across the hemisphere:

to Display Latest Leaf-out Records

to View Latest Map

Copyright 1997-2013 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Contact Us Search