So it’s been a while since my last blog post so I figured I’d do two for today. More so I really just wanted to talk about something: IT’S HOT!!!!!! Today is the perfect combination of heat and humidity to make you want to curl up in front of an open freezer with a giant bowl of ice cream. Or you can do what John and I did and stay inside instead of mapping trees today. Spending all day in the sun can often get pretty hot and help us develop an awesome farmer’s tan, but days like this would just be unbearable. However, all these hot days remind me of a place on campus that’s a lot cooler, the forests!

As part of our research we’ve  read about the benefits of urban trees and one of the biggest benefits is that they help cool down the area. They provide shade to help reduce the heat island effect, they reflect the sun better than asphalt does, and did I mention that they provide fantastic shade? But in all honesty, when we work in the forest I can feel a real drop in temperature and rise in thermal comfort compared to mapping the trees on the quads. Just walking across campus for 5 minutes in order to get to the forest is more miserable than spending 4 hours under the canopy. Well that might be a big of an exaggeration but being in the forest is fantastic.

The day I realized how much I looked forward to our forest days made me think about the value of trees as cooling agents. Luckily for us the University of Richmond campus is very woody and has tons of cosmetic trees all over the place to provide shade. I couldn’t imagine living in a place without trees. It would be sparse, sad-looking, and so hot! So next time you take refuge from the sun under a tree, think about how much better it would be if your community was filled with twice as many trees.

And just for fun here’s a couple of pictures of John and I hugging trees taken with our GPS units

Me being a tree hugger