Ball State's next Electronic Field Trip (EFT) will allow millions of students to explore the tree-top heights of a forest canopy of trees that stand 22 stories high. "Tree-mendous Technology" will air from near Carson, Wash., March 7 and will show how the green ceiling absorbs sunlight and rain, provides habitat for many organisms and houses the machinery of photosynthesis.

The program is being developed by Ball State's Teachers College in partnership with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, University of Washington, USDA Forest Service and Best Buy Children's Foundation, which funded the project.

Rather than study the trees from the ground, students will get a sky-high view and explore the amazing environment at the Wind River Canopy crane. Students will get to go behind the scenes of this facility, one that is open only to research scientists and closed to the general public, said Mark Kornmann, director of Teachers College outreach services.

"The old-growth forest we are featuring is awe inspiring, with many trees that have been rooted in the same spot for 500 to 700 years," he said. "Just as doctors couldn't do their jobs by looking at the lower third of patients' bodies, scientists can't understand what makes forests thrive unless they can examine whole trees — and this crane will give students an amazing, full-body view."

The Wind River crane is the world's second tallest and has the most extensive research program of any crane operating in the world today. The crane, which is just like ones operating at construction sites in cities across the nation, was erected in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest by the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources and the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station.

Researchers have access to 300 trees and nearly six acres of old-growth canopy that's just 90 minutes from Portland for projects ranging from how trees absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to how Pacific Northwest Forests compare to those in the tropics, Kornmann added.

The live, interactive field trip will allow more than 15 million students, teachers and community members from 49 states to bring the tree canopy into their classrooms and pose questions to the show's experts. Viewers can register to receive the broadcast at www.bsu.edu/eft.

The Electronic Field Trip Web site is a key part of the program and has been honored by the Center for Digital Education with a Best of the Web award and gold and silver awards at the 2005 World Media Festival. The site provides standards-based curriculum developed by teachers participating in the broadcast. The lesson plans cover geography, math, writing, art and more.

There is one broadcast remaining in the 2005-06 Electronic Field Trip lineup:

• "Exploring Nature's Plumbing System: Caves of the National Park System" — Caves are much more than nature's plumbing system. They are sites of exploration, adventure, shelter and cutting-edge research. The National Park Service will show off a handful of caves, including Carlsbad Caverns — the deepest limestone cave in the United States — and answer questions about stalactites, stalagmites and even cave bacon. Carlsbad, N.M., April 25

Electronic Field Trip partners include the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum; Space Center Houston/NASA; the National Park Foundation; Garfield and PAWS, Inc.; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and five Smithsonian entities ― The Environmental Research Center, National Museum of the American Indian, National Museum of American History, National Air and Space Museum and National Museum of Natural History.

(Note to editors: For more information, contact Kornmann at (765) 285-8106 or mkornmann@bsu.edu. For more about the Wind River Canopy Crane, visit www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec04/overthetop01.html.)