Carroll Students Discover Nature on High-Tech Hike

Ala Hussen, 12, used her iPad recently to snap a photo of leaves from a red oak tree. The Charles Carroll Middle School seventh-grader and about a dozen fellow students identified plant and animal species in West Field Park in New Carrollton, near the school.

The children were involved in BioBlitz, a program in which students, with the help of scientists, document plant and animal life using iPads.

Ala said she learned that white oak leaf lobes are circular, and red oak leaf lobes are pointed.

The National Geographic Society, which holds similar events each year in national parks throughout the country, filmed the Carroll students to create materials for teachers across the United States, said Sean O’Connor, program manager of educational mapping for National Geographic.

Click here to read the full article in The Washington Post.