This fall, countless tons of leaves will fall from the trees throughout the Mount
Hood area, land on the ground and decompose. And as part of a global study
on decomposition, a group of eighth grade students at Welches Middle School
is going to see just how fast that process works, five grams at a time.

“Basically the same material has been around for ages (and) no matter how
long it’s been around it will just keep coming back making new leaves and
feeding animals,” 13-year-old Kylee Pagel said. “I think that’s pretty cool.”

Science teacher Dan Wright explained that the effort started in Israel and is
done in conjunction with Oregon State University. A number of schools in
Oregon, including in Portland, Hood River, Sisters and at Sandy High School,
will participate in the study along with schools in Africa and western Europe.

Students at these schools all created nylon mesh bags and stuffed them with
five grams of leaves. The bags were then placed outside near the schools and
a couple bags will be retrieved each month over a year to see how quickly the
leaves decompose and what is contributing to it. The study aims to assess
decomposition in different geographical areas based on elevation, climate,
precipitation, temperature and more.

The students at Welches Middle School and Sandy High School both used
leaves from big leaf maple trees in order to make a good comparison between
their data sets. The bags in Welches were placed in three locations: one in the
deep forest, one on the forest edge in an area that can be swampy and a third
area somewhere in between the conditions of the first two.

Students already recognized that the environment on the mountain is much
different than the one at the high school.

“We’re a temperate rain forest,” 13-year-old Tori Wilcox said. “We have trees
surrounding us right now. Down at the high school, there’s not as many.”

The different locations in Welches should provide a range of decomposition
conditions, including the levels of sunlight, exposure to rainfall and numbers
of insects. Tricia Hooley, 13, already has a theory on how the different
locations will pan out for decomposition.

“The one up here in the dense forest will decompose slower than the rest
because its so dense and everything – shaded in,” she said. “Out there is
exposed to more rainfall and sun.”

As the only middle school participating in the study, the students are eager to
do their best, and they’ll get to see the early results of the experiment in early
December when the first set of bags are brought in for examination. And
regardless of what they find, they are simply excited about the chance to
participate in something on a larger scale.

“How many other middle schoolers do you know who can say they’ve been a
part of a national science investigation?” Pagel said.