TIPS FOR TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS:

Giant Sequoia Trees

• Have a classroom of children link hands on the playground to simulate the approximate trunk size of one giant sequoia. Then, have them look up into the sky, imagining that they can barely see the top of the tree in the clouds.

• Giant sequoia cones are the size of small chicken eggs; the seeds are the size and shape of oatmeal flakes. Bring a hardboiled/plastic egg and dry oatmeal flakes to share. Discuss how the small seeds and cones can produce something as large as the giant sequoia tree.

• Do a forest mural with giant sequoias, other evergreen trees, plants and animals of the forest.

• Locate on a map and talk about places where the giant sequoias grow in California: Yosemite National Park (Mariposa Grove, Tuolumne Grove), Calaveras Big Trees near the town of Arnold, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (several groves).

• Compare and contrast the giant sequoia (the world's largest tree) with its cousin the coast redwood (the world's tallest tree). Both in California, they grow in very different environmental zones.

• Web sites to visit:

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks at www.nps.gov/seki/.

Yosemite Web Index at www.yosemite.ca.us/.

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