Teaching Kids about Tree Bark

Sycamore bark has interesting colors and patterns that is much more evident in fall after leaves have dropped.

The general feeling among gardeners is the landscape is pretty boring in winter. The leaves have dropped, the perennial and annual flowers are gone, and aside from a few shrubs and trees with berries on them, the dominant color in most of the country is brown. If you've been gardening with your kids, it's easy to take the winter off. It's hard to get kids excited about the landscape and garden this time of year, and it can be challenging to find outdoor activities that will interest them once the crops have been harvested and the flowers have faded.

But if you look a little closer at the landscape, you'll see that trees and shrubs have very interesting bark patterns. Fall and winter are the best times to really notice these patterns. You can have kids identify trees by their bark patterns and research some of the uses of the bark. Here are some suggestions for discussions and activities:

Discuss why trees have bark and the role of bark as a skin to protect the inner layers of the tree branch and trunk.

Look at wounds on trees and discuss how bark grows over the wounds to heal them. Talk about how proper pruning provides a clean cut that heals more quickly.

Kids can take an inventory of the trees around their school or home and record all the different types of bark patterns they find.

Using a field guide, kids can identify some basic trees such as oak, sycamore, and birch by the bark pattern.

Kids can draw the bark patterns or do bark rubbings, and compare the differences they see.

Talk about the uses of various types of bark, such as exfoliated birch bark for starting fires and willow bark for making aspirin.

Discuss how creatures might be using the bark; for example, insects overwinter underneath loose bark. Look for signs of insects on the tree bark.